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Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint - Religion (3) - Nairaland

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Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 1:00pm On Nov 01, 2018
JMAN05:


We do not reject the Septuagint.
But keep researching, you will discover things I hope will help you. If I tell you, you may not believe until you do your own personal digging. So its good. Keep it up.

You can check the other thread, I wrote something there.

OneJ:




My bro, in your other thread, ("syncretism & monotheism", u know the topic U originated) PastorAI0 is making such claims simply because I pointed out that contrary to his opinion, "ego himi " in John 8:58 is NOT the same as "I am" in Exodus 3:14.

Whenever JW present the truth about a subject matter, it is often twisted & distorted by the opposition.
Jah bless.
Shalom


I don't see how you can be so totally given over to Lying that you can brazenly contradict yourselves and not care.

'Ego Eimi' is greek for 'I Am'. John 8:58 says Ego Eimi in the original text. Exodus 3:14 says Ego Eimi in the Septuagint.

When you say 'ego eimi is not I Am', your mind has become so distorted by lies that you cannot even see how ludicrous you look. (I Am is not I Am, lolz).



OneJ:

In Hebrew "ehyeh asher ehyeh" means. " I will become what/who I will become" ( Exodus 3:14 ). "Ego himi ho on " is not the Greek equivalent for Hebrew's ehyeh asher ehyeh. Stop being dishonest,Oga Pastor. White can never be black. pls Stick to the bitter truth.
If Ego eimi ho on is not the greek equivalent for ehyeh ahser ehyeh then you are saying that the septuagint got it wrong.


OneJ:


Oga, the Hebrew scriptures existed before the Septuagint. Their scrolls were often kept in the synagogues. In these bible verses of Matthew, U referred above, Jesus himself paraphrased what he learnt from the Hebrew scriptures .

Na the cover versions of the Hebrew Scriptures naim dey for the Septuagint


This is a brazen rejection of the Septuagint in favour of some 'hebrew scriptures' but it is based on ignorance.

OneJ:

LIES &FALSEHOOD!
All these your long epistle are half hearted measures at best. Where & when did Jesus "quotes extensively from the Greek translation"?
Rather, Jesus extensively quoted the Hebrew scriptures for instance, in Matt4:4 he quoted Deut8:3. In John 10:34 he quoted Psalms 82:6 etc.

You call the fact that Jesus quotes extensively from the Septuagint 'LIES AND FALSEHOOD'. Why do you hate the LXX so much that you want to lie that Jesus was quoting from them in the gospels. Is it because you hate the text because it does not support the doctrines of your cult?

OneJ:


... Well, i just saw this post now...
From time immemorial, the Jews rejected [b]"I am" (even till tomorrow) [/b]because know its a man made fallacy that has no connection to the name of God just as they too rejected the Trinity. However, there exists apostates in their midst who would fall for any man made philosophy they fancy.

Is this ignorance or mendacity? the majority of Jews in the first century in fact used the LXX and so they did not reject 'I Am'. That is just a lie. or hopefully, just ignorance.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 1:12pm On Nov 01, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

First of all, Ubenedictus, why do you sound like you're on the war path? You opted to respond to me when I addressed myself to PastorAIO. The least you could do is maintain something of a neutral attitude, right? If I have offended you, it was completely unwitting. There is no reason to treat my arguments like a personal affront.

I can't speak for Ubenedictus but for myself I've got to admit I find your pseudo intellectual posturing quite irritating, especially as its blatantly uninformed, and it has required quite a measure of discipline and restraint to not respond in a sharper tone with you. I have been quite aggressive in the past and I've usually ended up feeling remorseful about it. So I try to be as cordial as possible.

You introduced yourself to this thread with the following ....
ihedinobi2:
Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book, PastorAIO.

You fancy yourself to be some sort of superior intellect and that can easily rub many people the wrong way. Especially if you then go on to write considerable amounts of nonsense on the subject discussed.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 2:15pm On Nov 01, 2018
Ihedinobi3:



Now, there is one thing that you are ignoring. It is that the Bible claims to be the Very Word, the Very Truth of God. That is a very big claim for any bit of literature to make. And the only way one can know for sure who wrote what is to look for signs of that person's personality and character in what is attributed to them. The fact that different versions of a literature are attributed to anyone does not mean that one or other of them was really written by them. Nor does that confusion mean that none of them were written by them.

As Uben has already responded to you. The Bible makes no such claim. Unless you have another bible that you are reading that makes that claim. There is nowhere from Genesis to Revelation where the Bible says 'This Tome is the Very Word, the Very Truth of God'. There is nowhere in the bible that you'll find that.
On the contrary you'll find the following claim in the book of Psalms:

19 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork..
2
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4
Their voice[b] goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.



But out of curiousity how do you look for signs of God's personality in the Bible. Where did you first get to know his personality which you can then compare to what's in the bible?



That is one important thing to note. There is another. It is that if any witness or communication was given by God to all human beings in order to provide them with all the information they need to fulfill the purpose of their existence, then it would only follow that God would also preserve that witness or communication to make sure that all human beings who ever want it can get access to it.

For this reason, all questions of authenticity will always be settled by an appeal to spiritual discernment since God is Spirit and any witness such as the Bible must necessarily be spiritual in nature. The history makes for an interesting intellectual exercise but in the end, however old manuscripts may be and however preserved the contents of a given manuscript or the other may be, the question will always be a spiritual one:

"does this witness - whatever it is - say what God would reasonably be expected to say?"

With those words in bold you've undermined the authenticity of the bible. The fact is that there are numerous versions and translations of the bible and there are numerous cults and groups formed on the basis of these different translations (or sometimes the translation are based on the doctrines of the cult). If the witness is from God then God would preserve it? Well the bible hasn't been so accurately preserved so does that mean that it could not be a witness from God?

Excuse me if I scoff at your appeal to spiritual discernment, but it has been my observation that folks run to hide under 'spiritual discernment' when they have no logical or intelligent argument left to defend their position.



I only just started learning ancient Greek and Hebrew, PastorAIO. I have neither reason nor interest in Latin - which I think is the language the title was written in - so I can't say with much confidence that I know what your title means. I had a guess and you have confirmed it but I couldn't have categorically said that you were clear about anything. So, it may really take a Sherlock Holmes to know what your thread was really about.
That's okay. It's not actually Latin. I made the word up myself. The Biblio part is from Greek for book, and the Latria part is from Latin for worship. So I put them together to refer to what I observe as people worshiping the bible beyond what the bible is or claims to be. People like you actually.



Additionally, throughout the time I have known you on Nairaland, I have never been sure what your deal is. I just know that you attack Christianity a lot. That's why I call you an antichristian. I don't know if you're an atheist, a deist or an agnostic. From something you wrote years ago which I read recently, it seems that you reject all labels and simply attack Christianity for the behavior of Christians and for the things about the Bible that you don't find acceptable. But from your words right now, you clearly don't accept the Virgin Birth or at least you question it. So, I assume that you don't accept that Jesus is God Who became Man to die for our sins. That leads me to think that whatever else you may claim to be, you do not claim to follow Jesus Christ even if you have issues with the behaviors of Christians and with the Bible.

So, no, clarity is not something I have ever associated you with.
Have you ever considered the fact that it could be you that is the antichristian? It is you who disavows the Church in favour of some new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines.

I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that I don't accept the Virgin birth. I mentioned that the Virgin birth is supported by the LXX but not the Hebrew text.



I disagree with your categorical statement. I already stated the major reason in my statement above. God has preserved His Word by Himself through free will choices made by different men through the ages and in spite of schemes and agenda and preferences of different groups.

One way to appreciate this is to consider the production of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have already done this. Their Bible was created to attack the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of the Lord Jesus but the production ended up a contradiction and an absurdity because it taught both that the Lord Jesus is Deity and that He is not. Consistency with its own self is an important test of the Bible. Any version of the Bible that contradicts itself is questionable already unless it can present an explanation within itself for the apparent contradiction. Even modern mainstream translations of the Bible other than those produced by cults like the JW have problems which are discernible to the diligent student. But those problems would not even be discernible unless the student knows God in a way that enables Him to identify things that aren't consistent.
With these words you have pretty much dismissed the entire bible with your argument. What time was Jesus crucified? what time did he die? The answer would depend on which part of the bible you were reading.


I can't speak to what Martin Luther did since I am not a historian but it does not "smell right" judging by what I do know of the Reformation. I may try to find more information on that.

Differences in the different versions of the OT is to be expected given that this world is a warzone and the issue is the Truth. What is truth? That's the question every human activity is concerned with. The Bible is God's Answer to the question. So, of course, it will be attacked with forgeries at least.
Oh come on now. Not being an Historian never stopped you in the past.
How can different versions be expected when God supposedly protects his Witness? You are contradicting yourself man.

Can you tell me which of the various versions is the authentic Witness of God in your opinion? Is it the KJV? Or the ESV? or the Douay Rheims? Which one?



As for the argument that Christianity is rooted in the Septuagint, that is false. The Lord Jesus and the apostles quoted the Septuagint because the known world of that time was steeped in Greek culture and language. That some people decided to make that much more out of the Septuagint does not mean that Christianity is rooted in the Septuagint. It just means that some people decided to make more of it than they should. Those who have followed Christ have always sought to know the Truth wherever it could be found. That is why you could mention someone like Jerome. And before Jerome there was Origen. That too is why even with so many versions of the Bible today, there are still people who sift through the traditions and errors to find the Truth.
Traditions and errors in the only Witness that God is taking special care to preserve.

Pray tell, Why do you insist that Christianity cannot be rooted in the Septuagint?


Regarding the Virgin Birth, what I have learned is that the passage in Isaiah used the Hebrew word for young woman, not the one for virgin, but the use of that word does not exclude the possibility of virgin. This makes sense if the prophecy had more than one application (as the context and other Bible passages confirm). Isaiah was speaking first of a young woman who was contemporary to him and may or may not have been a virgin (the context does limit the interpretation to "virgin" ) but he was also speaking of another young woman who would be a virgin and exist much later.

You should go back to your bible and study it better. The virgin/young woman is not just mentioned in Isaiah but Matthew chapter 1 makes it explicitly clear that it was a Virgin and it had to be a virgin to fulfill what God said:



22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”).



It had to be a Virgin, not just a young woman, and Matt 1 goes into detail of what happened and how it all happened in order to fulfill Isaiah.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ubenedictus(m): 6:41pm On Nov 02, 2018
JMAN05:


It letter has a substance to the discussion, The full paragraph of interest reads:

Letter 107 - To Laeta

let her treasures be not silks or gems but manuscripts of the holy scriptures; and in these let her think less of gilding, and Babylonian parchment, and arabesque patterns, than of correctness and accurate punctuation. Let her begin by learning the psalter, and then let her gather rules of life out of the proverbs of Solomon. From the Preacher let her gain the habit of despising the world and its vanities. Let her follow the example set in Job of virtue and of patience. Then let her pass on to the gospels never to be laid aside when once they have been taken in hand. Let her also drink in with a willing heart the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. As soon as she has enriched the storehouse of her mind with these treasures, let her commit to memory the prophets, the heptateuch, the books of Kings and of Chronicles, the rolls also of Ezra and Esther. When she has done all these she may safely read the Song of Songs but not before: for, were she to read it at the beginning, she would fail to perceive that, though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal. And not understanding this she would suffer hurt from it. Let her avoid all apocryphal writings, and if she is led to read such not by the truth of the doctrines which they contain but out of respect for the miracles contained in them; let her understand that they are not really written by those to whom they are ascribed, that many faulty elements have been introduced into them, and that it requires infinite discretion to look for gold in the midst of dirt. Cyprian's writings let her have always in her hands. The letters of Athanasius and the treatises of Hilary she may go through without fear of stumbling. Let her take pleasure in the works and wits of all in whose books a due regard for the faith is not neglected. But if she reads the works of others let it be rather to judge them than to follow them."

you can see the instruction was about sacred scripture before his recommending other works.
actually I read the entire paragraph and many books of the Bible weren't mentioned, many that Jerome considers canonical aren't there, but guess the works that make it, Cyprian, Hilary and Athanasius.


As I earlier said this is a list of books a child is to read not his list of what is scripture.

He gives a list of canonical scripture elsewhere and later his list of ecclesiastical scripture.

jerome listed 22 books as what he viewed are canonical, and stated that any beyond that will be left as apocryphal. When someone list books he considers canonical, he is in another words telling us that the books he listed are inspired and authoritative. Any other book beyond that might be correct, but it is never as authoritative and inspired as the ones listed as canonical. That is simple to me.
he lists the books he considered canonical 22 of them, he listed another 7 he considered ecclesiastical to be read by the authority of the church for edification and he also calls those books scripture... It is the others who do not make either list that are apocryphal.

On the topic of Jerome, it is easy to concede that he elevated the Hebrew scripture and even though he calls the deuterocanon scripture he doesn't call them canonical... That is easy to concede. So too it is easy to remember that the church in council over ruled him and one priest doesn't equal the entire church in authority.

For Jerome the deuterocanon wasn't apocrypha, it was ecclesiatical, it was scripture just placed below the Hebrew canon in authority.... For the church who has the authority, it is both scripture, and canonical.


I think you are detaching that discussion out of context. The church back then had even accepted this apocryphals as canonical, as they follow what is written in the Septuagint. Back then, they viewed the Septuagint as inspired. But Jerome took a different turn. He went ahead to translate from the Hebrew Bible, not the Septuagint that was revered by the then church. Is that the judgment of the churches? When Augustine wrote Jerome, instructing him to stick to the Septuagint and nothing more, did Jerome hid to that advice? You read further his letter 57 or read that discuss with Rufinus, you will see him make case for the Hebrew bible as against the Septuagint, which was then against the opinion of the churches. So you are cutting the letter out of context.
Jerome all through his life consistently accepted the Hebrew texts as been the best even though the church didn't. But in the letter to rufinus he wrote clearly that he didn't translate Daniel by the Hebrew text but instead by the greek because THAT IS THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHURCH.


HE SAYS:

We have four versions to choose from: those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches? But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us. I did not reply to their opinion in the Preface, because I was studying brevity, and feared that I should seem to he writing not a Preface but a book.


So no, am not quoting out of context, Jerome who preferred the Hebrew text translated Daniel according to the Greek because that is what the church says. That same Jerome also translated the deuterocanonical book even though they are not found in the Hebrew text.

If one does not list a particular book in his canon, how can he view the one not listed as inspired. If you understand the meaning of canon, you will understand the point very well. And some of the areas where you added a scripture attached the words of these men are not certain. They never wrote there words with those scriptural quotations. Secondly, as Jerome said to Laeta, they may view those books as books of wisdom,but not as a book from the authors the book was ascribed to.
because canon in the early church does not equal inspiration. Canon is what is read in liturgy. In the Russian Orthodox church the book of revelation is not canonical but it is scripture. We know he considered them scripture became he gives them a list of their own and calls them scripture. This is pretty clear.
Does not the SCRIPTURE say: 'Burden not thyself above thy power' [SIRACH 13:2] Jerome, To Eustochium, Epistle 108 (A.D. 404), in NPNF2, VI:207
Jerome says:

"Thus there are twenty-two books . . . This prologue of the Scriptures can serve as a fortified approach to all the books which we translate from the Hebrew into Latin; so that we may know that whatever is beyond these must be put in the apocrypha"

And these is even as the council of Carthage had those books as there canon.
and Jerome denied speaking wrongly of the deuterocanon.... And I'll still take the church above Jerome.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ubenedictus(m): 8:21pm On Nov 02, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

First of all, Ubenedictus, why do you sound like you're on the war path? You opted to respond to me when I addressed myself to PastorAIO. The least you could do is maintain something of a neutral attitude, right? If I have offended you, it was completely unwitting. There is no reason to treat my arguments like a personal affront.
I'm not even offended, I just prefer to be blunt when I write.

I'm not neutral in the discussion because I did take a position, it is not exactly pastoraio's position but it certainly is totally different from yours. I addressed your post because I think if you accuse someone of been simplistic then you must be ready to address the issue in all its complexity. If you think someone is wrong then do the due diligence to make sure you get it right. I didn't consider your response to pastoraio particularly charitable, by my own estimation I have granted you the very charity you didn't do him.

Second, your rebuttal about the Bible's claim about itself is truly disappointing. Here's why:

2 Timothy 3:16
[16]All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

2 Peter 1:20-21
[20]But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,
[21]for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Peter 3:15-16
[15]and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
[16]as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

The above are three out of 53 results that showed up when I searched the word "Scripture" in an NASB (New American Standard Bible) app. The first thing that comes straight out is that the word "Scripture" is clearly used as a technical word meaning something very specific. That means that both Paul and Peter and the people they wrote to knew what the word meant. That is to say, they knew what was Scripture and what was not. This was obviously before all the apostles were dead since these two were apostles. Also, throughout the New Testament, as I already mentioned, there is constant reference to "the Scripture" or "the Scriptures" so that clearly there was existing literature that was known by those who made these references and by those to whom the references were made as Scripture. That immediately negates your claim that "the Hebrew Canon was not set until after the apostles died".

Next, Peter clearly recognized Paul's writings as Scripture in the last passage of the three I shared above. Paul was still very much alive at that time and still writing. So, clearly, the text itself was known to be Scripture right when it was written, not hundreds of years later when some council pronounced upon it. Even Paul himself, the writer, treated his writings as Scripture (Col 4:16). So, as I said before, the Canon was set as each book was written because of God's unique signature in them. The writers knew what they were writing. Those who read the writing knew what they read. No council was necessary to prove anything. And there is no reason in the New Testament to believe that God thundered in any way to communicate that the writing in question was from Him.

Again, it was clearly sufficient that, as Paul said, each writing of Scripture was "inspired" by God. That means that each writing possessed the Essence of God which identified the writing as God's Words to the reader. That is what the Bible itself says, not a claim that I am making. So, the Bible is the one you would be taking issue with here if you disagree, not me. In other words, what Paul said is that if any writing is Scripture, you will be able to tell that it is from the presence of God's Inspiration in it, not that the writing itself will claim to be written by God. So, if you are looking for an actual explicit written claim in a book of the Bible that it was written or commissioned by God, it would be at your own behest, not because the Bible says that true Scripture would be identified that way.
first of all Paul writing to Timothy says all scripture is inspired, in fact he places the word scripture in context by claiming that they are texts Timothy has been familiar with from childhood.... He is speaking of the "scripture" of the old testament and even at that this technical term didn't have a defined list of books. For the Samaritan reading that text Paul was referring to the Torah alone! For a Pharisee it was between 20-22 books since they were still argument on which books are pure, to an average Jewish Rabbi in the first century who accepted the Septuagint it could be 28 books, for an Essene it would be over 30 books...the audience was the church and since the church and the apostles used the Septuagint I believe he was referring to the 29 books the church accepts as scripture. Again that passage pretty much is old testament specific.

The next tells us that Peter knew that many letters of Paul was been considered scripture in the church, the letter doesn't tell us if the writing of Peter, John or Hebrew was considered scripture. Heck it doesn't even tell us which of the letters of Paul is been referred to, is it his letters to the churches or does it include his personal correspondence like that to Philemon.

I repeat what I wrote earlier, the Bible does not anywhere state that these 50,70, or 80 books are the scripture, God's word and Oracle... The people who did make that claim is the church.
The Bible tells us that scripture is God breathed but it certainly does not give a list of the books that make the scripture.

The Bible doesn't make the claim either that whatever is scripture is immediately recognisable, if is was Jews won't be debating what books defiled the hand, nor would whole Christian churches reject certain letters of Peter, etc, nor would Martin Luther advocate against the book of James as contradictory to the other scripture. Your theory that the book of Timothy implies that scripture is immediately recognised is just a theory and not found in the passage in question.

None of this puts a dent on what I said earlier.

The issue of each man discerning the "feature" that says a book is inspired still raises it own question, who makes the discernment, Luther tried and ended up not liking both James and the deuterocanon, the church did its own and accepted 73 books, I hear the Ethiopian church now accept 80 books, jerome discerned and had two lists of scripture one he called canon, the other ecclesiastical, heck I believe you are happy with 66 books based on your discernment. Who among the above have got the discernment correct? Or it is OK for every one to discern for himself? Heck who here has the authority to discern? Based on acts 15 I say the church has the final say, she is led by the spirit and is heir to the unfailing promises of Christ... For you I guess it everyone for himself.

Finally, obviously, the Bible does claim that Scripture is God-inspired. So, unless any writing can prove itself to indeed be God-inspired, it is not Scripture. That is the Bible's actual claim. And it is on the basis of that claim that we can say that this or that book does or does not belong in the Bible. It is only when we doubt this claim made in the Bible that we would then make up our own criteria for deciding what is and what is not Scripture. That is what I believe is very wrong with the Roman Catholic Church: you do not believe the Bible
I will say the collection called the Bible does NOT make such claim, some books allude to other, some books make claims about themselves, but certainly no book or group of books tell us that the current collection in your hand is exactly scripture. Nope that decision was made by others.

The Catholic church certainly doesn't share your theory that the Bible tells us it table of content and calls it all scripture, we don't do that because it is a lie to say the Bible makes a claim it doesn't make.

We do believe the Bible to be God's word but we wouldn't lie that its table of content is immediately recognisable and that the Bible tells us of same.

Third, I don't believe that it is only good people who can tell that something is Scripture. That is not what I said. I believe that the Bible identifies itself to anyone who cares to know what it is. Not that they would understand what it says: only those who have the Spirit of God can understand what the Bible says. But anyone - good, bad, believing, unbelieving - who comes to the Bible seeking to know what it is will know that it is God's Oracle. Whether they decide to retain that knowledge in themselves by believing it or not is up to them. If they choose to reject it as God's Truth, then the Bible will be closed to them and its claims and pronouncements ridiculous to them. That is why we can have these discussions. The Truth does not force itself on anyone while we still live in mortal flesh in this world. We have free will and can choose whether to accept or reject the Truth as it pleases us. So, even knowing that the Bible is the Word of God when we open it does not mean that we will believe it. We can reject that knowledge and choose instead to lie to ourselves that it isn't for any number of rationalizations that suits us.
anyone can find it you say and whoever can't find it is just one who rejected the truth he found.

I could say the same of anything, Nigeria is the greatest country in the world everyone can see it whoever doesn't agree, saw it but rejected it.

My grand mum is a virgin, everyone can see it, whoever doesn't agree saw it but rejected it... And I can go on and on, the statement is amoebic in nature, sounds like what you say when you can't address an issue, you claim it is self evident and condemn all he disagree as insincere liars etc. Doesn't make for a good argument.

So, double standards? Luther's alleged tampering? Essenes? Etc. My answer to all these things is that once you accept the testimony of Scripture concerning itself, it becomes clear that to know what book, text, translation, manuscript etc is Scripture, all we need to do is read it.

PS. I don't think that you should take history so lightly. You make a lot of claims on the basis of documents you believe say the truth about what happened so long ago. A trained historian might surprise you about what is really admissible as historical truth and what isn't. Just saying.
OK tell us which translation(s) is correct since you assume to have the right discernment. Is Luke correct to quote the Septuagint above the Hebrew that a virgin is to conceive not just a young woman?

Since you believe your acceptance of a claim scripture doesn't make of itself gives you the qualification to discern, how about we hear it.


Lastly certain trained historians also tell us that lots of things, some even tell us that the church tampered and added to or revised the new testament we now used, some tell us the scribes did same to the old testament even before Jesus was born, attend a class on high method of biblical criticism and you'll be scared what they say. There are those who say the apostles didn't write the gospel.... How many of those do you agree with.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 7:45pm On Nov 03, 2018
Ubenedictus:
I'm not even offended, I just prefer to be blunt when I write.

I'm not neutral in the discussion because I did take a position, it is not exactly pastoraio's position but it certainly is totally different from yours. I addressed your post because I think if you accuse someone of been simplistic then you must be ready to address the issue in all its complexity. If you think someone is wrong then do the due diligence to make sure you get it right. I didn't consider your response to pastoraio particularly charitable, by my own estimation I have granted you the very charity you didn't do him.

first of all Paul writing to Timothy says all scripture is inspired, in fact he places the word scripture in context by claiming that they are texts Timothy has been familiar with from childhood.... He is speaking of the "scripture" of the old testament and even at that this technical term didn't have a defined list of books. For the Samaritan reading that text Paul was referring to the Torah alone! For a Pharisee it was between 20-22 books since they were still argument on which books are pure, to an average Jewish Rabbi in the first century who accepted the Septuagint it could be 28 books, for an Essene it would be over 30 books...the audience was the church and since the church and the apostles used the Septuagint I believe he was referring to the 29 books the church accepts as scripture. Again that passage pretty much is old testament specific.

The next tells us that Peter knew that many letters of Paul was been considered scripture in the church, the letter doesn't tell us if the writing of Peter, John or Hebrew was considered scripture. Heck it doesn't even tell us which of the letters of Paul is been referred to, is it his letters to the churches or does it include his personal correspondence like that to Philemon.

I repeat what I wrote earlier, the Bible does not anywhere state that these 50,70, or 80 books are the scripture, God's word and Oracle... The people who did make that claim is the church.
The Bible tells us that scripture is God breathed but it certainly does not give a list of the books that make the scripture.

The Bible doesn't make the claim either that whatever is scripture is immediately recognisable, if is was Jews won't be debating what books defiled the hand, nor would whole Christian churches reject certain letters of Peter, etc, nor would Martin Luther advocate against the book of James as contradictory to the other scripture. Your theory that the book of Timothy implies that scripture is immediately recognised is just a theory and not found in the passage in question.

None of this puts a dent on what I said earlier.

The issue of each man discerning the "feature" that says a book is inspired still raises it own question, who makes the discernment, Luther tried and ended up not liking both James and the deuterocanon, the church did its own and accepted 73 books, I hear the Ethiopian church now accept 80 books, jerome discerned and had two lists of scripture one he called canon, the other ecclesiastical, heck I believe you are happy with 66 books based on your discernment. Who among the above have got the discernment correct? Or it is OK for every one to discern for himself? Heck who here has the authority to discern? Based on acts 15 I say the church has the final say, she is led by the spirit and is heir to the unfailing promises of Christ... For you I guess it everyone for himself.

I will say the collection called the Bible does NOT make such claim, some books allude to other, some books make claims about themselves, but certainly no book or group of books tell us that the current collection in your hand is exactly scripture. Nope that decision was made by others.

The Catholic church certainly doesn't share your theory that the Bible tells us it table of content and calls it all scripture, we don't do that because it is a lie to say the Bible makes a claim it doesn't make.

We do believe the Bible to be God's word but we wouldn't lie that its table of content is immediately recognisable and that the Bible tells us of same.

anyone can find it you say and whoever can't find it is just one who rejected the truth he found.

I could say the same of anything, Nigeria is the greatest country in the world everyone can see it whoever doesn't agree, saw it but rejected it.

My grand mum is a virgin, everyone can see it, whoever doesn't agree saw it but rejected it... And I can go on and on, the statement is amoebic in nature, sounds like what you say when you can't address an issue, you claim it is self evident and condemn all he disagree as insincere liars etc. Doesn't make for a good argument.

OK tell us which translation(s) is correct since you assume to have the right discernment. Is Luke correct to quote the Septuagint above the Hebrew that a virgin is to conceive not just a young woman?

Since you believe your acceptance of a claim scripture doesn't make of itself gives you the qualification to discern, how about we hear it.


Lastly certain trained historians also tell us that lots of things, some even tell us that the church tampered and added to or revised the new testament we now used, some tell us the scribes did same to the old testament even before Jesus was born, attend a class on high method of biblical criticism and you'll be scared what they say. There are those who say the apostles didn't write the gospel.... How many of those do you agree with.
Ubenedictus, what you did and are doing was and is in poor form. I did not address you. You chose to talk to me. The least you could be is civil until I give you cause to be otherwise.

Your response to my argument with the three passages is a very good example of what I said about Roman Catholics. You don't believe the Bible. And why would you when you claim it is your creation?

Let me say it again: unless these writers in the New Testament bothered to clarify what they meant by the word "Scripture", the logical thing to assume is that those to whom they wrote knew exactly what they meant. If you want to debate about what they may have meant, I am not interested at this point. What my argument here is is this: before the apostles died, it was clear to at least the writers and the recipients and readers of the New Testament what was Scripture and what wasn't. That is a direct negation of your claim that the Hebrew Canon "was not set until after the apostles died". If your claim was true, then there would have been need for each writer to clarify what they meant.

In the same vein, whether Peter meant all of Paul's letters or some of them also does not matter even the slightest bit. The point is that while Paul was still alive and writing, Peter himself recognized his writing as Scripture. There was no council then which pronounced on them and no thundering from Heaven. So how did Peter know that they were Scripture? Will you seriously argue that he did not mean what he said? I wouldn't be too surprised if you did.

Those of us who actually believe the Bible see ONE Book, not several. We do because they all share the same essence. That is, they all bear the same signature. So, we know that what one of them says is what all of them say. Additionally, every book that presents itself as giving authoritative information about spiritual matters may be reasonably assumed to be claiming spokesmanship for God even when it does not explicitly do so. However, I find it hard to remember a single book in the Bible that does not in one form or other present itself as an oracle. Paul in almost all his letters included the statement "grace and peace from [God] to [the readers and recipients]". That was a direct claim that he was writing under commission from God. There are many such signs in each book. But that is hardly the point. Any book may make such a claim. The question is whether the claim is true. Also, the absence of such a claim is no proof that the writing is not Scripture. As I said, the proof that a writing is Scripture is that it is God-inspired. Unless, of course, you think that Paul was lying or mistaken somehow. It wouldn't surprise me too much if you turn around and decide that you think so. For now, though, you agree that the Bible says what it says. If Scripture is God-breathed or God-inspired, then Scripture will be immediately recognizable as such to anyone who demands its identity. Or else how could everyone who wrote and received the New Testament when it was written know what was Scripture without some council telling them? Or else how would Peter know that any of Paul's letters was Scripture?

As for who is getting discernment correct, that's your appeal to popularity. It is not my place to worry about who and who is discerning Scriptures right (which is why I care very little about your claims about Luther). My business is to make sure that I am being careful to discern the Bible. And I am. I have read what you call "the deuterocanon" and without being told, I knew something was weird about them. They were not like the other books. I was a child when I read them. I have had infrequent contact with them through my growing up years. I am an adult now. And I still think they are weird. But none of the 66 books recognized by Protestants feels the same way to me. I couldn't care less what your own opinion on them is.

As I said, I don't care what the Roman Catholic Church thinks is true and what it doesn't.

About the historians, it's like visiting a doctor. You don't lose your brain just because you don't have a medical degree and someone who has one or more is talking to you about your body. But neither do you pretend to be a doctor or to know what a doctor is trained to know. You acknowledge your limits and you still use your common sense to parse what you're told. That is why I can say that claims made about Luther "don't smell right" even if I am not historian. They just don't fit with what I do know about that period of human history, to say nothing of what I do know about the man himself. So, while I do not deny that "high method of biblical criticism" is capable of scaring believers, I don't think there would be that much there that would really trouble me. And I may know a little bit about some of that. Still, one must acknowledge one's limits and not just make things up to feel more comfortable. That only leads to more trouble for oneself in the end.

I don't find much in the rest of your arguments that I need to respond to beyond what I said above.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 7:46pm On Nov 03, 2018
PastorAIO:


I can't speak for Ubenedictus but for myself I've got to admit I find your pseudo intellectual posturing quite irritating, especially as its blatantly uninformed, and it has required quite a measure of discipline and restraint to not respond in a sharper tone with you. I have been quite aggressive in the past and I've usually ended up feeling remorseful about it. So I try to be as cordial as possible.

You introduced yourself to this thread with the following ....


You fancy yourself to be some sort of superior intellect and that can easily rub many people the wrong way. Especially if you then go on to write considerable amounts of nonsense on the subject discussed.
Does it occur to you that I may have some opinion of you too? Why do you think you have more right to look down on my "pseudo intellectual posturing" than I do to look down on yours? Or do you possess unique rights to all true intellectual posturing and confer it only on those who please you? Can't we just be two people who disagree with each other? Why does there have to be any intellectual posturing, whether true or false, involved here?

1 Like

Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 7:54pm On Nov 03, 2018
PastorAIO:


As Uben has already responded to you. The Bible makes no such claim. Unless you have another bible that you are reading that makes that claim. There is nowhere from Genesis to Revelation where the Bible says 'This Tome is the Very Word, the Very Truth of God'. There is nowhere in the bible that you'll find that.
On the contrary you'll find the following claim in the book of Psalms:

19 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork..
2
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4
Their voice[b] goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.



But out of curiousity how do you look for signs of God's personality in the Bible. Where did you first get to know his personality which you can then compare to what's in the bible?


With those words in bold you've undermined the authenticity of the bible. The fact is that there are numerous versions and translations of the bible and there are numerous cults and groups formed on the basis of these different translations (or sometimes the translation are based on the doctrines of the cult). If the witness is from God then God would preserve it? Well the bible hasn't been so accurately preserved so does that mean that it could not be a witness from God?

Excuse me if I scoff at your appeal to spiritual discernment, but it has been my observation that folks run to hide under 'spiritual discernment' when they have no logical or intelligent argument left to defend their position.



That's okay. It's not actually Latin. I made the word up myself. The Biblio part is from Greek for book, and the Latria part is from Latin for worship. So I put them together to refer to what I observe as people worshiping the bible beyond what the bible is or claims to be. People like you actually.



Have you ever considered the fact that it could be you that is the antichristian? It is you who disavows the Church in favour of some new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines.

I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that I don't accept the Virgin birth. I mentioned that the Virgin birth is supported by the LXX but not the Hebrew text.



With these words you have pretty much dismissed the entire bible with your argument. What time was Jesus crucified? what time did he die? The answer would depend on which part of the bible you were reading.


Oh come on now. Not being an Historian never stopped you in the past.
How can different versions be expected when God supposedly protects his Witness? You are contradicting yourself man.

Can you tell me which of the various versions is the authentic Witness of God in your opinion? Is it the KJV? Or the ESV? or the Douay Rheims? Which one?



Traditions and errors in the only Witness that God is taking special care to preserve.

Pray tell, Why do you insist that Christianity cannot be rooted in the Septuagint?


You should go back to your bible and study it better. The virgin/young woman is not just mentioned in Isaiah but Matthew chapter 1 makes it explicitly clear that it was a Virgin and it had to be a virgin to fulfill what God said:



22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”).



It had to be a Virgin, not just a young woman, and Matt 1 goes into detail of what happened and how it all happened in order to fulfill Isaiah.
The conversation moved on some before your response so I'm thinking you are only dragging me back to respond to things I already put a response to.

I already told Ubenedictus how the Bible said so. Of course it did say so in many ways. Whenever Paul or Peter said "Grace to you (and peace) from [God]", they were essentially saying that they were writing for God. In each book of the Bible, this sort of thing occurs in one form or another. It may be by implication when a given book simply makes very authoritative statements about things that only God could really say. Or it may be more obvious as in the example I gave. Still, as I said to Ubenedictus too, this is neither here nor there. Any book may claim anything or prefer to make no claim. A claim does not make a writing Scripture. The absence of one does not make it NOT Scripture.

I believe we will come back to the passage in Psalms, but not just right now. As for how I find signs of God's Personality, I don't know that it is much different than how you find signs of anybody's personality in what they write. Maybe you can explain the latter?

About whether or not God preserved His Witness, here are some other things I said:

"Regardless of this desire on the part of the majority of human beings to distort God's Truth, God's Truth is still preserved in the world because of others who not only want to know it in its pure form but want to keep it accessible to others who may come to seek it. This is how God counteracts the power of the Lie. So, in every generation, there have been true believers equipped with the abilities and resources required to either reclaim the Truth from increasingly elaborate distortions that the Enemy and his agents have tried to mire it in."

"Why did God not prevent anyone from corrupting the Scriptures though? It is a fair question because obviously God can and He loves us and wants us to know the Truth or else the Bible is lying about Him, that is, He would be lying about Himself if the Bible is truly His Testimony. The answer to that question is that we have a free will. All sane human beings (the overwhelming majority of human beings) do. Therefore, each of us has a God-given right to decide what to do with God's Testimony. We can receive it in humility. We can ignore it. Or we can actively try to destroy it like King Jehoiakim of Judah tried to do in Jeremiah 36:21-26. Active physical destruction of the Bible has been attempted multiple times in human history but it is not the only way that people have actively attempted to destroy the Scriptures. They have tried too to add or remove or change material in them so that those who read their production will be misled into believing lies masked as Truth. This is hardly novel since Satan himself has been doing that since the beginning of human history, that is, presenting the lie as the truth to try to deceive those who want to be listening to God.

God allows this to make sure that every human choice about him is clearly demonstrated in the eyes of men and angels. But He is also God and He does have people who love His Truth and He commits Himself to helping them to preserve it, covering their weaknesses with His Strength so that His Testimony is preserved pure in the earth. There has never been a time in human history when such people did not exist. Nor has there ever been a time in human history when their opposite didn't either. So at all times throughout human history, both the pure Testimony of God and the adulteration, distortions and outright invented alternatives have always existed together so that everyone can choose what side they want to be on."


Perhaps those folks have a point. The Bible itself does say that only those who have the Spirit of God can discern and understand what it says. So they are not making it up. I can understand that you scoff at such appeals if you scoff at the Bible, as it seems to me that you do.

So, let me get this straight: you made up the very title of this thread, that is, it would take someone who knows Greek and Latin to figure out what your title is about but you still thought "it was clear from the title" whatever your thread was about? And I got no points for figuring out what you were doing? How was this not disingenuity on your part?

Okay. So a Christian is one who is loyal to the Roman Church? Why do you believe that? What authority defines the Christian that way? And what are these "new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines" I'm supposed to be following?

Well, do you believe in the Virgin Birth, PastorAIO?

It is not true that the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The fact that a different Hebrew word was used than the word for "virgin" does not necessarily translate to "the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The context does have a say in this. And the context in the Hebrew Bible not only does support the Virgin Birth but it emphatically teaches it.

How did I dismiss the entire Bible with that argument? As for your questions, it is not true that the answers vary. The same thing was just stated in different ways as different writers tend to do about the same things.

I'm not sure that it didn't. It's a long time now since I had such discussions. But even if I did, people grow and change and I respect expertise now in other people. I know that history is not merely reading a bunch of books. There are tools and specialized knowledge that help historians make decisions about historical truth. So, I try to respect that now. Now I know what I know and what I don't know and know when I'm making an educated guess and when I am saying what I am certain of.

As to the question, why do you ask that when I also offered an explanation in the comment you are responding to? Why don't you fault the argument instead of require me to repeat it?

It's not my job to tell you. When you read it, you will know. If you want to know, that is. That is after all what I have been saying about the argument of councils. No one needs anyone to tell them what is Scripture and what isn't.

Christianity is rooted in the Bible, not just this or that version or this or that opinion of it. The Septuagint is not all wrong or all bad. But it certainly is not perfect by any standard.

Of course it was a Virgin. Isaiah just didn't use the exact Hebrew word for virgin there. Still, the context made it clear that he was talking about a virgin. Excuse the imperfection of my earlier statement. I did say though that the context limited the interpretation there to virgin.

1 Like

Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 12:42pm On Nov 04, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

Does it occur to you that I may have some opinion of you too? Why do you think you have more right to look down on my "pseudo intellectual posturing" than I do to look down on yours? Or do you possess unique rights to all true intellectual posturing and confer it only on those who please you? Can't we just be two people who disagree with each other? Why does there have to be any intellectual posturing, whether true or false, involved here?

I have absolutely no doubt that you have your opinion of me. I also have no doubt that you'd have no qualms about expressing that opinion as you would with any of your other opinions with the same faux-superior condescension. An example can be found in the post you entered this thread with. You assumed a superiority over those you'd argued with on NL in the past.

ihedinobi2:
Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book, PastorAIO.

You said I strung together a false argument. Apart from the fact that I didn't actually make an argument but rather a cursory look at the history of the LXX you called it false without, till now, being able to provide an argument as to why it was false.

And as if your plan is to destroy us all with the power of Irony you then go on to claim that others are incapable of forming arguments or properly attacking arguments. Abeg remind me what it is that Jesus said about the Log in the eye and the speck in the eye.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 2:10pm On Nov 04, 2018
PastorAIO:


I have absolutely no doubt that you have your opinion of me. I also have no doubt that you'd have no qualms about expressing that opinion as you would with any of your other opinions with the same faux-superior condescension. An example can be found in the post you entered this thread with. You assumed a superiority over those you'd argued with on NL in the past.



You said I strung together a false argument. Apart from the fact that I didn't actually make an argument but rather a cursory look at the history of the LXX you called it false without, till now, being able to provide an argument as to why it was false.

And as if your plan is to destroy us all with the power of Irony you then go on to claim that others are incapable of forming arguments or properly attacking arguments. Abeg remind me what it is that Jesus said about the Log in the eye and the speck in the eye.
I am not going to have an entire debate on this with you, PastorAIO.

You claim that I am an intellectual fraud who hypocritically claims that other people cannot form or properly attack arguments.

I have heard you. And I don't care that you think so.

If you want your statement to mean anything, go and address my actual arguments and prove them to be nonarguments.

I do think that I will point out how interesting it is that you clam that you didn't make an argument when you said this:

PastorAIO:
That's okay. It's not actually Latin. I made the word up myself. The Biblio part is from Greek for book, and the Latria part is from Latin for worship. So I put them together to refer to what I observe as people worshiping the bible beyond what the bible is or claims to be. People like you actually.

So, what does "contra bibliolatreia" mean and what was the point of this thread if it was not to present a reason for opposing the worship of the Bible? Isn't that what your title means: "against (or, in opposition to) the worship of the Bible"?


Also, you think it's okay for you and other antichristians to come and throw your weight around claiming that Christians can't use their brains and then lose your mind when someone else starts to show you "faux superior condescension"? Haha. Very funny.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:00pm On Nov 04, 2018
Please can you isolate which parts of my post you are responding to when you reply because it is quite difficult to follow your posts, especially as they are quite lengthy.

Ihedinobi3:

The conversation moved on some before your response so I'm thinking you are only dragging me back to respond to things I already put a response to.
I read your response to Ube which did not touch the matter. It didn't even come close.



I already told Ubenedictus how the Bible said so. Of course it did say so in many ways. Whenever Paul or Peter said "Grace to you (and peace) from [God]", they were essentially saying that they were writing for God. In each book of the Bible, this sort of thing occurs in one form or another. It may be by implication when a given book simply makes very authoritative statements about things that only God could really say. Or it may be more obvious as in the example I gave. Still, as I said to Ubenedictus too, this is neither here nor there. Any book may claim anything or prefer to make no claim. A claim does not make a writing Scripture. The absence of one does not make it NOT Scripture.

Saying Peace of God, and the Grace of God be on you is not a claim to writing on God's behalf. This is just the way Christians greet each other. To say it is a claim to be coming from God is so utterly spurious. So if I say to you, 'God Bless you' that must mean that I'm now speaking on behalf God. That makes about half the human population orators for God.
I repeat the Bible makes no such claim. I am more certain of that now that the only proof that you have is to take a common greeting out of context and claim that it is a claim to be speaking from God.




I believe we will come back to the passage in Psalms, but not just right now. As for how I find signs of God's Personality, I don't know that it is much different than how you find signs of anybody's personality in what they write. Maybe you can explain the latter?


Wow! You're going to duck the Psalms passage.

How do I identify a personality in a writing? If someone showed me a letter that was full of spurious sophistry, I might ask the person who showed me the following question. "Was this written by Ihedinobi, it's sounds like him, I've read lots of other stuff by him on Nairaland and this certainly has all the hallmarks of this reasoning"?
The fact is that outside of the letter I already have experience of Ihedinobi which I can compare to what I see in the letter.

In order for you to be able to identify God's personality in the bible then you must already have some foreknowledge of God's personality outside of the bible. You will then be able to show that what you encountered outside the bible is strikingly similar to what you are seeing in the bible.

Pray tell, where did you know God before that tallies with the God that you read about in the bible?


About whether or not God preserved His Witness, here are some other things I said:

"Regardless of this desire on the part of the majority of human beings to distort God's Truth, God's Truth is still preserved in the world because of others who not only want to know it in its pure form but want to keep it accessible to others who may come to seek it. This is how God counteracts the power of the Lie. So, in every generation, there have been true believers equipped with the abilities and resources required to either reclaim the Truth from increasingly elaborate distortions that the Enemy and his agents have tried to mire it in."

"Why did God not prevent anyone from corrupting the Scriptures though? It is a fair question because obviously God can and He loves us and wants us to know the Truth or else the Bible is lying about Him, that is, He would be lying about Himself if the Bible is truly His Testimony. The answer to that question is that we have a free will. All sane human beings (the overwhelming majority of human beings) do. Therefore, each of us has a God-given right to decide what to do with God's Testimony. We can receive it in humility. We can ignore it. Or we can actively try to destroy it like King Jehoiakim of Judah tried to do in Jeremiah 36:21-26. Active physical destruction of the Bible has been attempted multiple times in human history but it is not the only way that people have actively attempted to destroy the Scriptures. They have tried too to add or remove or change material in them so that those who read their production will be misled into believing lies masked as Truth. This is hardly novel since Satan himself has been doing that since the beginning of human history, that is, presenting the lie as the truth to try to deceive those who want to be listening to God.

God allows this to make sure that every human choice about him is clearly demonstrated in the eyes of men and angels. But He is also God and He does have people who love His Truth and He commits Himself to helping them to preserve it, covering their weaknesses with His Strength so that His Testimony is preserved pure in the earth. There has never been a time in human history when such people did not exist. Nor has there ever been a time in human history when their opposite didn't either. So at all times throughout human history, both the pure Testimony of God and the adulteration, distortions and outright invented alternatives have always existed together so that everyone can choose what side they want to be on."



I believe you haven't really given much thought to the idea of Free Will in your entire life.

There are a variety of bibles and they are different enough from each other to be able to facilitate the development of quite contrary doctrines in the many different types of Christian churches.

I never tire for marveling at how people like you take it upon yourself to speak for God and tell us the inner workings of God's mind.



Perhaps those folks have a point. The Bible itself does say that only those who have the Spirit of God can discern and understand what it says. So they are not making it up. I can understand that you scoff at such appeals if you scoff at the Bible, as it seems to me that you do.


Why are you resorting to lies now? Where did I scoff at the bible? I scoff at your attitude to the bible, that is quite a different matter.
Where did the bible say that only those that have the Spirit of God can understand it? Where does the bible even ever refer to itself from Genesis to Revelation? Certain books or letters refer to other books or letters, and sometimes to themselves but there is absolutely no reference to the bible in the Bible.


So, let me get this straight: you made up the very title of this thread, that is, it would take someone who knows Greek and Latin to figure out what your title is about but you still thought "it was clear from the title" whatever your thread was about? And I got no points for figuring out what you were doing? How was this not disingenuity on your part?

the suffix '-latry' is common in the english language and you don't have to be a greek scholar to know that Latria means worship. Ido-latry, Idol worship. Mono-latry, worship of a single being. etc etc etc....

Excuse me for giving you more credit than you merit.



Okay. So a Christian is one who is loyal to the Roman Church? Why do you believe that? What authority defines the Christian that way? And what are these "new fangled baseless ideologies and doctrines" I'm supposed to be following?


I said the Church, you added Roman. However the apostolic traditions can be found outside of Roman Catholicism too. Are you trying to be clever? I believe that a christian would be loyal to the Church because it was founded by Jesus Christ himself who they purport to follow, and he promised to preserve the Church. So when one attacks the Church from outside I can only conclude that they cannot be christian. All this is getting rather off topic don't you think?



Well, do you believe in the Virgin Birth, PastorAIO?


Off Topic. The Virgin birth is a corner stone of Christianity and Matthew says it occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that a Virgin would conceive and bear a child.



It is not true that the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The fact that a different Hebrew word was used than the word for "virgin" does not necessarily translate to "the Hebrew Bible does not support the Virgin Birth. The context does have a say in this. And the context in the Hebrew Bible not only does support the Virgin Birth but it emphatically teaches it.

The virgin birth occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy that a Virgin will conceive and bear a child. If such a prophecy did not actually exist then not only is the Gospel wrong, but the Virgin birth is pointless.




How did I dismiss the entire Bible with that argument? As for your questions, it is not true that the answers vary. The same thing was just stated in different ways as different writers tend to do about the same things.


You dismissed the bible because there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?


I'm not sure that it didn't. It's a long time now since I had such discussions. But even if I did, people grow and change and I respect expertise now in other people. I know that history is not merely reading a bunch of books. There are tools and specialized knowledge that help historians make decisions about historical truth. So, I try to respect that now. Now I know what I know and what I don't know and know when I'm making an educated guess and when I am saying what I am certain of.

As to the question, why do you ask that when I also offered an explanation in the comment you are responding to? Why don't you fault the argument instead of require me to repeat it?

Well, if you've grown and changed then you've done so very fast, in the last week or so. You forget how you entered into this thread which is about the historical origins of the Septuagint. You entered like a know-it-all to tell us that OP was sophisticated but false.
ihedinobi2:
Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book, PastorAIO.
On what basis did you say it was false if you don't know history, yet respect history and realise that history is more that just reading books (or britannica for that matter.




It's not my job to tell you. When you read it, you will know. If you want to know, that is. That is after all what I have been saying about the argument of councils. No one needs anyone to tell them what is Scripture and what isn't.

Christianity is rooted in the Bible, not just this or that version or this or that opinion of it. The Septuagint is not all wrong or all bad. But it certainly is not perfect by any standard.

all of a sudden it is not your job, but pontificating on baseless sophistry is your job abi? There are many versions out there and you say there is a war but God's true witness is preserved. Abegi, which one of the versions out there is God's true Witness. Nor be exam question.

Christianity cannot be rooted in the Bible. The New testament of the Bible was all written AFTER Christianity was established.
If you can tell me another version of the OT that is quoted to support Christian doctrines like the LXX you can say Christianity is not rooted in LXX.



Of course it was a Virgin. Isaiah just didn't use the exact Hebrew word for virgin there. Still, the context made it clear that he was talking about a virgin. Excuse the imperfection of my earlier statement. I did say though that the context limited the interpretation there to virgin.

What context made it clear that the Almah means virgin? Please explain the context.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:05pm On Nov 04, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

I am not going to have an entire debate on this with you, PastorAIO.

You claim that I am an intellectual fraud who hypocritically claims that other people cannot form or properly attack arguments.


This is not a claim. This is a fact. Abi, are you not the one that wrote this:

ihedinobi2:
Makes for interesting browsing. This was back when antichristians could still string together a sophisticated but false argument. Today, they can't even talk without finding an insult to throw in. And they never even bother to properly attack arguments or properly construct one. They could take a library out of your book, PastorAIO.

If it is not you then I apologise. However if it is you then yes, you came here to claim that 'other people cannot form or properly attack arguemts'.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:08pm On Nov 04, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

I have heard you. And I don't care that you think so.

If you want your statement to mean anything, go and address my actual arguments and prove them to be nonarguments.

I know you don't care what I think. I think you don't care much about anything in this matter. Your motivations quite removed from the topic of conversation.

I have addressed your sophistry in a subsequent post.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:14pm On Nov 04, 2018
Ihedinobi3:


I do think that I will point out how interesting it is that you clam that you didn't make an argument when you said this:



So, what does "contra bibliolatreia" mean and what was the point of this thread if it was not to present a reason for opposing the worship of the Bible? Isn't that what your title means: "against (or, in opposition to) the worship of the Bible"?

The title of the thread is Contra Bibliolatreia meaning against the bible worship. Still the OP is not an argument. You know what an argument is, do you? An argument seeks to demonstrate something. I have yet to present the argument, however just discussing with you and allowing you to spout sophistry is a subtle kind of Argument in itself.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:17pm On Nov 04, 2018
Ihedinobi3:


Also, you think it's okay for you and other antichristians to come and throw your weight around claiming that Christians can't use their brains and then lose your mind when someone else starts to show you "faux superior condescension"? Haha. Very funny.

This is pathetic. So now you are just making up lies. Where did I say that christians can't use their brains? Are JMAN05 and Ubenedictus not Christians? Where did I say they were not using their brains?
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 7:56am On Nov 05, 2018
PastorAIO:


This is pathetic. So now you are just making up lies. Where did I say that christians can't use their brains? Are JMAN05 and Ubenedictus not Christians? Where did I say they were not using their brains?
I am responding to this because it would be wrong of me to have made a false accusation of this sort against you and fail to apologize or argue for my innocence of such an accusation.

Let me put it this way: I included you because of something you said on this forum a long time ago. The same way you know my Nairaland history and brought it up when it suited you too, yours is easily accessible too.

Whether you believe that the people you were speaking of were true Christians or not, you did sneer at their lower intellectual ability compared to the atheists.

That was almost ten years ago or maybe less than that.

That attitude has not exactly changed with you. You have never, to my knowledge, ever said the exact words in question but what you have actually said amounts to the same thing including a very recent statement about Christians on the forum since MrAnony1 and I left the forum some years back.

I am not interested in a debate about this. It is of little consequence to me and to anyone who cares for Truth what your opinion of me is, especially when you think the way you do about the Bible and fellow Christians. If you had a more pleasant attitude toward these things, then I would be worried about why you see any reason to treat me differently than them.

So, again, there was no lie. I know that you make some kind of difference between some people you refer to as Christians and others you call "christians" but unless that difference is an objective one, it matters little. You do treat and speak of Christians like they are not very intelligent with some exceptions perhaps like the people you mentioned.

Because this is not anything I care that much about - being attacked in one way or another comes with the territory in apologetics, for me - I am not going to offer proof. This is not that big of a deal. You do know of what I speak. They are your posts. If you want to split hairs and insist that they say exactly that Christians don't use their brains, I will concede the point and let you have your merry way. But your post history is long and prodigious. Anyone who is that concerned can take the trouble of finding the proof for themselves. I said what I said for educational purposes, not to embarrass you.

In any case, I won't discuss this any further. Your opinion of me is noted and accepted (it was years ago too). And I choose not to care about it.

Perhaps we can now actually deal with the "sophistries", "nonarguments" and all that other more boring stuff, can we?
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 12:55pm On Nov 05, 2018
PastorAIO:
I read your response to Ube which did not touch the matter. It didn't even come close.
So you say.

PastorAIO:
Saying Peace of God, and the Grace of God be on you is not a claim to writing on God's behalf. This is just the way Christians greet each other. To say it is a claim to be coming from God is so utterly spurious. So if I say to you, 'God Bless you' that must mean that I'm now speaking on behalf God. That makes about half the human population orators for God.
I repeat the Bible makes no such claim. I am more certain of that now that the only proof that you have is to take a common greeting out of context and claim that it is a claim to be speaking from God.
About the clause in question, there is a difference between:

"(may) Grace be with you" or "the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" and other blessings like that

And

"Grace TO you and Peace FROM God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ" and other such statements.

The first is a prayer and a desire for God to grant Grace and Peace. The second is a definite statement informing the receivers that God was sending His Grace and His Peace in the letter. This is exactly like when you say that "so-and-so sends their love" or "so-and-so greets you". The difference here is that it is put at the beginning of the letter to tell the readers that, yes indeed, this letter is coming from God through our agency. He is not just sending His Grace and Peace in the manner that a loved one asks another who is writing a letter to send their love to a dear one but effectively confirming that the letter is from Him.

As I always say in debates like this these days, I am not trying to persuade you of anything. You are free to believe whatever you want. What I am here to do is to set the records straight for anyone who actually cares about the Truth. For such people, knowing that Paul sent his own greetings and confirmed God's Own sending of His Grace and Peace through his letters is enough to strengthen their faith in the Book of Truth. For you, however, I am persuaded that there is nothing in Heaven or Earth besides God's Own full unveiling of His Glory that will persuade you to believe that the Bible is God's Own Book and a Full Revelation of Jesus Christ, not when you have refused to exercise free will faith in it.

PastorAIO:
Wow! You're going to duck the Psalms passage.

How do I identify a personality in a writing? If someone showed me a letter that was full of spurious sophistry, I might ask the person who showed me the following question. "Was this written by Ihedinobi, it's sounds like him, I've read lots of other stuff by him on Nairaland and this certainly has all the hallmarks of this reasoning"?
The fact is that outside of the letter I already have experience of Ihedinobi which I can compare to what I see in the letter.

In order for you to be able to identify God's personality in the bible then you must already have some foreknowledge of God's personality outside of the bible. You will then be able to show that what you encountered outside the bible is strikingly similar to what you are seeing in the bible.

Pray tell, where did you know God before that tallies with the God that you read about in the bible?
You would be very pleased to find that that is true, wouldn't you? That was not the right place to deal with that psalm. This is.

Now, that psalm along with Romans 1:19-21 is your answer. In theology, it is called Natural Revelation. That is, the whole world around us, our own consciences and the fact of physical death are all witnesses not only to the existence of God but also to His Personality. This is why I said that everyone - whether believing or not, good man or bad, Hindu or Sikh - will know that the Bible is the very Word of God Himself once they read it. Everyone of us is born knowing from the evidence of creation, death and the human conscience that God does exist and what He is like. So, we all know what is likely to be His Testimony and what isn't.

But each person possesses a God-like ability to choose to completely ignore these witnesses (as you can see from the Romans 1 passage) and make up their own "truth" and do as they please. So, of course, it is entirely possible for a human being to deny that the Bible is indeed God's Word. We can and the vast majority of us unfortunately do because we want to have life on our own terms rather than God's.

Natural Revelation, however, is not the end of the story. It does make it possible for every human being who actually wants to to recognize the Bible for what it is but it does not make the Bible understandable to everyone. We will come to that in another part of your argument.

PastorAIO:
I believe you haven't really given much thought to the idea of Free Will in your entire life.

There are a variety of bibles and they are different enough from each other to be able to facilitate the development of quite contrary doctrines in the many different types of Christian churches.

I never tire for marveling at how people like you take it upon yourself to speak for God and tell us the inner workings of God's mind.
It's entirely your prerogative what you want to believe. It's not my problem really.

I'm not sure how this is any kind of counter to what I said.

Good. You shouldn't take such a thing for granted. There are not that many people who have really bothered to learn "the inner workings of God's Mind" and there are even fewer who possess the gift of explaining it to others for their own spiritual benefit.

PastorAIO:
Why are you resorting to lies now? Where did I scoff at the bible? I scoff at your attitude to the bible, that is quite a different matter.
Where did the bible say that only those that have the Spirit of God can understand it? Where does the bible even ever refer to itself from Genesis to Revelation? Certain books or letters refer to other books or letters, and sometimes to themselves but there is absolutely no reference to the bible in the Bible.
This is an example from this particular post that I am responding to. I am sure that you have some way of explaining it that will not amount to scoffing at the Bible. I will be very happy to hear your explanations:

"there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?"


"Bible" is a word that was used to describe the collection of all the sacred writings of Christianity into one volume. The common name that was used for those writings before "Bible" was "Scripture" or "Scriptures". Do you want to ask your question again?

As to where the Bible said that only those who possess the Holy Spirit can understand it:

1 Corinthians 2:7-16
[7]but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
[8]the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
[9]but just as it is written, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him."
[10]For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
[11]For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
[12]Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
[13]which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
[14]But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
[15]But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
[16]For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 12:57pm On Nov 05, 2018
PastorAIO:
the suffix '-latry' is common in the english language and you don't have to be a greek scholar to know that Latria means worship. Ido-latry, Idol worship. Mono-latry, worship of a single being. etc etc etc....

Excuse me for giving you more credit than you merit.
You're right. You certainly did give me more credit than was due here. I have never seen the suffix "-latry" that commonly used. Even now I have tried to remember seeing it outside of the word "idolatry" and I keep failing. But, my guess is that you would not find many other people who would have found it that easy to know what it means. So, perhaps, you have a skewed appreciation of reality here.

PastorAIO:
I said the Church, you added Roman. However the apostolic traditions can be found outside of Roman Catholicism too. Are you trying to be clever? I believe that a christian would be loyal to the Church because it was founded by Jesus Christ himself who they purport to follow, and he promised to preserve the Church. So when one attacks the Church from outside I can only conclude that they cannot be christian. All this is getting rather off topic don't you think?
I think it might be too. But I am thoroughly puzzled right now what you are really saying with the above. Did you not mean the Roman Church, I wonder? Is it the Roman Church that you are seriously claiming that the Lord Jesus Himself founded, I wonder? Is that the Church too that you are claiming that the Lord Jesus promised to preserve, I wonder? Is that the Church that you claim I am attacking, I wonder? Because if the answer to all this is "yes", the problem is very complicated indeed.

However, according to the Bible, it is faith in Jesus Christ that matters. Possession of such faith makes one a believer. Believers were first called "Chrestians" (in today's parlance, that would mean "goody two-shoes" ) in Antioch and that name was later corrupted to "Christians" (that is, members of the household of Christ). That is why we are so called today. Otherwise, we were variously called "believers", "disciples" and "followers of the Way". None of this had anything to do with the Roman Church or with any visible earthly institution. You are a Christian if you believe in Jesus Christ. You are not if you do not.

And I call everyone who attacks such people especially with arguments and questions to undermine their faith antichristians. You fall right into that category

PastorAIO:
Off Topic. The Virgin birth is a corner stone of Christianity and Matthew says it occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that a Virgin would conceive and bear a child.
Indeed. I just wondered if you were thinking of making your identity clear for some reason. I see you are still playing the mystery card.

As for what the Virgin Birth is about and what Matthew said, there is no argument there.

PastorAIO:
The virgin birth occurred in order to fulfill the prophecy that a Virgin will conceive and bear a child. If such a prophecy did not actually exist then not only is the Gospel wrong, but the Virgin birth is pointless.
Not sure why you felt the need to say the above. The Hebrew Bible does hold that Isaiah prophesied throughout Virgin Birth. That was what I said in that argument you responded to with the above.

PastorAIO:
You dismissed the bible because there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?
Weird. These are the words with which I dismissed the entire Bible according to you:

"I disagree with your categorical statement. I already stated the major reason in my statement above. God has preserved His Word by Himself through free will choices made by different men through the ages and in spite of schemes and agenda and preferences of different groups.

One way to appreciate this is to consider the production of Jehovah's Witnesses. I have already done this. Their Bible was created to attack the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of the Lord Jesus but the production ended up a contradiction and an absurdity because it taught both that the Lord Jesus is Deity and that He is not. Consistency with its own self is an important test of the Bible. Any version of the Bible that contradicts itself is questionable already unless it can present an explanation within itself for the apparent contradiction. Even modern mainstream translations of the Bible other than those produced by cults like the JW have problems which are discernible to the diligent student. But those problems would not even be discernible unless the student knows God in a way that enables Him to identify things that aren't consistent."


Still, can't see what any of the above has to do with reconciling different accounts by different writers of the same event.

You have a low view of inspiration. So, I am not sure what good it would do you to explain any of the questions you asked at this point.

PastorAIO:
Well, if you've grown and changed then you've done so very fast, in the last week or so. You forget how you entered into this thread which is about the historical origins of the Septuagint. You entered like a know-it-all to tell us that OP was sophisticated but false.

On what basis did you say it was false if you don't know history, yet respect history and realise that history is more that just reading books (or britannica for that matter.
I gave you benefit of the doubt because I can't claim to remember exactly how I was about history debates on this forum in 2012. I know that I engaged in them and that I did believe what I argued but whether or not I pretended to be an authority is something I don't remember. So I will give you benefit of the doubt in that regard.

Your argument did not need me to be a historian to know it was false. I was not essentially concerned about the history, after all. My concern was with your representation of the Bible. I knew that it was false. You were presenting a case for its unreliability. Whether you were presenting a scientific, historical or cultural case would have made no difference. My answer would have been the same. Any argument that casts aspersions on the reliability and inspiration of the Bible is false.

When such arguments are presented, I can often tell whether the science or history or culture is way over my head or within my reach. Yours was the latter. I didn't need to be a trained historian to deal with it. There are questions that have been raised and arguments that have been presented since I joined the conversation that I know are outside the limits of my ability in history to answer and I have refused to offer an opinion in them without some serious research as a result. Others which have been within my grasp, however, have been judiciously responded to.

PastorAIO:
all of a sudden it is not your job, but pontificating on baseless sophistry is your job abi? There are many versions out there and you say there is a war but God's true witness is preserved. Abegi, which one of the versions out there is God's true Witness. Nor be exam question.

Christianity cannot be rooted in the Bible. The New testament of the Bible was all written AFTER Christianity was established.
If you can tell me another version of the OT that is quoted to support Christian doctrines like the LXX you can say Christianity is not rooted in LXX.
My argument right up to this point has remained this: the Bible identifies itself to everyone who wants to know what it is. So, why is it so sudden for you that it is not my job to identify the Bible to you? Did I ever claim anything different than the statement I just reiterated?

As I said, when you read what is out there, you will know which is God's Word.

I have no idea what you mean by "The New testament of the Bible was all written AFTER Christianity was established". Please explain. When was Christianity established and how are we able to know that it was at that time?

Your question about the Septuagint has already been answered sufficiently. To reiterate, the vast majority of believers from early days were Gentiles in a Greek-speaking world. A Greek Bible then was handy for communicating with them whenever it was not going to mislead the hearers. That does not therefore mean that the Septuagint was the root of Christianity. The alternatives were not readily accessible to believers at the time since most of them could not speak or read Hebrew and did not even have Jewish traditions.

PastorAIO:
What context made it clear that the Almah means virgin? Please explain the context.
Isaiah 7:1-16
[1]Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.
[2]When it was reported to the house of David, saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.
[3]Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field,
[4]and say to him, 'Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.
[5]Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying,
[6]"Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,"
[7]thus says the Lord God: "It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.
[8]For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people),
[9]and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last."'"
[10]Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying,
[11]"Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven."
[12]But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!"
[13]Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?
[14]Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
[15]He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.
[16]For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

Note the bold text. It wouldn't be much of a sign unless the woman was an unmarried virgin at the time, would it?
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ubenedictus(m): 8:53pm On Nov 06, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

Ubenedictus, what you did and are doing was and is in poor form. I did not address you. You chose to talk to me. The least you could be is civil until I give you cause to be otherwise.
my dear I have not been uncivil with you, I have handled your presentations bluntly but I have been charitable, I have not directed any ad hominems and have addressed your points and only your points... I don't know why you think I have been uncharitable with you. If I have, point it out and I'll apologize.

Your response to my argument with the three passages is a very good example of what I said about Roman Catholics. You don't believe the Bible. And why would you when you claim it is your creation?
I have been around long enough to know every Protestant I meet have his or her version of what Catholics think, most times far from the truth and frankly speaking, I have gradually began not to care about it if not that instructing the ignorant was considered an act of mercy. Of course the church created the Bible, borrowed much from the Jews, the other parts were written by members of the church under inspiration, recognized by the church, addressed to the church and compiled by same. I do not just claim its creation, I assert it forcefully from all available evidence that under the influence of the holy spirit the church did create what is called the Bible borrowing the old testament from the Jews.

This doesn't in any way imply any disbelief in the Bible, heck, the Jews created the old testament and no one accuses them of not believing it simply because they created it under God's help.

Let me say it again: unless these writers in the New Testament bothered to clarify what they meant by the word "Scripture", the logical thing to assume is that those to whom they wrote knew exactly what they meant. If you want to debate about what they may have meant, I am not interested at this point. What my argument here is is this: before the apostles died, it was clear to at least the writers and the recipients and readers of the New Testament what was Scripture and what wasn't. That is a direct negation of your claim that the Hebrew Canon "was not set until after the apostles died". If your claim was true, then there would have been need for each writer to clarify what they meant.
oh that is a good claim to make. The church was the recipient of the letter, the church actually knew what was been talked about it was the Greek Septuagint which the church considered scripture, so yes! The recipient seemed to be clear that scripture for them was the Greek canon...

Besides its still doesn't even address my point, the Jews too were always referring to scripture as a technical term even though until the 2nd century they were still arguing what books were scripture. That a person said " scripture " to another doesn't mean they necessarily had a set list of what was considered scripture. But if you wish to go forward with that claim, then I'll submit that scripture for the churches was the Septuagint.

In the same vein, whether Peter meant all of Paul's letters or some of them also does not matter even the slightest bit. The point is that while Paul was still alive and writing, Peter himself recognized his writing as Scripture. There was no council then which pronounced on them and no thundering from Heaven. So how did Peter know that they were Scripture? Will you seriously argue that he did not mean what he said? I wouldn't be too surprised if you did.

Actually every Christian Church could recognise its own set of books as scripture even without a council, actually every church was gathering it own collection of writings she recognized as scripture, in fact while Paul was still alive churches were reading his letters as scripture but his letters weren't the only ones been read that way. Churches also took the letter of st Clement to the Corinthians as scripture and it was read on Sundays in some churches... So too the sherperd of Hama's. Do you recognise those books? Because they too were read as scripture in churches immediately they were written? If the criteria is that the books were immediately recognised as scripture then may Clement too and the sherperd should be scripture, if that is the criterion maybe books like Hebrew and peter shouldn't make it too because many churches rejected them.


Which brings me back to my point, Clement was instantly accepted by churches and so was Paul on what basis then do we have Paul in our bibles but not Clement, the answer is the church in council, the gospels had almost universal appeal but not Peter, yet they are both in the Bible, how come? The church accepted both.

Those of us who actually believe the Bible see ONE Book, not several. We do because they all share the same essence. That is, they all bear the same signature. So, we know that what one of them says is what all of them say. Additionally, every book that presents itself as giving authoritative information about spiritual matters may be reasonably assumed to be claiming spokesmanship for God even when it does not explicitly do so. However, I find it hard to remember a single book in the Bible that does not in one form or other present itself as an oracle. Paul in almost all his letters included the statement "grace and peace from [God] to [the readers and recipients]". That was a direct claim that he was writing under commission from God. There are many such signs in each book. But that is hardly the point. Any book may make such a claim. The question is whether the claim is true. Also, the absence of such a claim is no proof that the writing is not Scripture. As I said, the proof that a writing is Scripture is that it is God-inspired. Unless, of course, you think that Paul was lying or mistaken somehow. It wouldn't surprise me too much if you turn around and decide that you think so. For now, though, you agree that the Bible says what it says. If Scripture is God-breathed or God-inspired, then Scripture will be immediately recognizable as such to anyone who demands its identity. Or else how could everyone who wrote and received the New Testament when it was written know what was Scripture without some council telling them? Or else how would Peter know that any of Paul's letters was Scripture?
sorry but you have mixed much nonsense here.

The Bible may tell one story but it isn't one book, it is instead one line of thought and even with the deuterocanon it is still that same line.
And again, the grace thing is a greeting still used in the church today, it is not some declaration that what is been written is God's Oracle.

Lastly those who received the new testament when it was written received a lot of things, some had more books than we have others had less, there was no "feature" totally recognized by every one, if it was so all the churches would have always had the same list but that was never the case.




As for who is getting discernment correct, that's your appeal to popularity. It is not my place to worry about who and who is discerning Scriptures right (which is why I care very little about your claims about Luther). My business is to make sure that I am being careful to discern the Bible. And I am. I have read what you call "the deuterocanon" and without being told, I knew something was weird about them. They were not like the other books. I was a child when I read them. I have had infrequent contact with them through my growing up years. I am an adult now. And I still think they are weird. But none of the 66 books recognized by Protestants feels the same way to me. I couldn't care less what your own opinion on them is.
lol, I never appealed to popularity, you claimed the scriptures had a "feature" that made it recognisable to anyone, if it was so then how do you account for how come the entire church recognized the Septuagint with it deuterocanon as scripture, even those who ranked it lower is recognized it as scripture. So the entire church weren't good enough to see the feature wasn't in the deuterocanonical books and it took 1500years for Martin Luther to come and recognise that the feature is absent.

Sorry dear, you either concede that the feature is hardly recognisable or it is nonexistent or if it is existent and easily recognisable then it is the church who got it correct not the guy who came centuries later.

I have my own story, I was also a child when I noticed my mum's Jerusalem Bible has more books than the RSV we used in school, I read wisdom and sirach and I immediately recognized that it was the same with the Bible, I remember thinking those who made the decision were silly. When I grew up I noticed every one appealed to personal discernment when they can't find a clear justification for their action, anyone can make any decision and blame it on discernment, but there is an entity that is promised preservation by God and has authority to make that discernment and has the assurance of the holy spirit, I.e the church.

As I said, I don't care what the Roman Catholic Church thinks is true and what it doesn't
then I can also say I don't care what you think and then the discussion will break down because it is silly to be in a discussion when you don't care what the other thinks.

About the historians, it's like visiting a doctor. You don't lose your brain just because you don't have a medical degree and someone who has one or more is talking to you about your body. But neither do you pretend to be a doctor or to know what a doctor is trained to know. You acknowledge your limits and you still use your common sense to parse what you're told. That is why I can say that claims made about Luther "don't smell right" even if I am not historian. They just don't fit with what I do know about that period of human history, to say nothing of what I do know about the man himself. So, while I do not deny that "high method of biblical criticism" is capable of scaring believers, I don't think there would be that much there that would really trouble me. And I may know a little bit about some of that. Still, one must acknowledge one's limits and not just make things up to feel more comfortable. That only leads to more trouble for oneself in the end.
do you need the quote from Martin Luther himself as to his mago mago?

I don't find much in the rest of your arguments that I need to respond to beyond what I said above.
still same issues.

The Bible does not say the Bible is God's word, the Bible did not identify its table of content, the church did.

The church did finalise on what is scripture, if you decide to hide under discernment to forward the protestant list then you may very well concede that the "feature" is not easily recognisable since your list of scripture is different from that which the church used for centuries, or the feature is nonexistent or the church did get it right.

Either way your story only make each man his own Bible creator. Let us give every man the abt 100 books that were in contention and let everyman discern for himself what should be scripture, create chaos.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 4:25pm On Nov 07, 2018
Ubenedictus:
my dear I have not been uncivil with you, I have handled your presentations bluntly but I have been charitable, I have not directed any ad hominems and have addressed your points and only your points... I don't know why you think I have been uncharitable with you. If I have, point it out and I'll apologize.
All right. It's probably a misunderstanding on my part.

Ubenedictus:
I have been around long enough to know every Protestant I meet have his or her version of what Catholics think, most times far from the truth and frankly speaking, I have gradually began not to care about it if not that instructing the ignorant was considered an act of mercy. Of course the church created the Bible, borrowed much from the Jews, the other parts were written by members of the church under inspiration, recognized by the church, addressed to the church and compiled by same. I do not just claim its creation, I assert it forcefully from all available evidence that under the influence of the holy spirit the church did create what is called the Bible borrowing the old testament from the Jews.

This doesn't in any way imply any disbelief in the Bible, heck, the Jews created the old testament and no one accuses them of not believing it simply because they created it under God's help.
Indeed. Was it not you who mentioned how some Jews think that some books are too holy to even be touched much less read? That is, they consider them inaccurate somehow. An example is the Book of Daniel. There is no escaping such arrogance once any individual or group of people makes such arrogant claims as you do.

Of course, you didn't create the Bible. You just like to think that you did because of the false sense of spiritual superiority you derive from such a lofty thought. What you did was do your best to corrupt the Bible and neutralize it with your traditions.

Ubenedictus:
oh that is a good claim to make. The church was the recipient of the letter, the church actually knew what was been talked about it was the Greek Septuagint which the church considered scripture, so yes! The recipient seemed to be clear that scripture for them was the Greek canon...

Besides its still doesn't even address my point, the Jews too were always referring to scripture as a technical term even though until the 2nd century they were still arguing what books were scripture. That a person said " scripture " to another doesn't mean they necessarily had a set list of what was considered scripture. But if you wish to go forward with that claim, then I'll submit that scripture for the churches was the Septuagint.
One, your claim that the Church knew that it was the Septuagint that was referred to is completely unimpressive. If I ask you for proof, are you going to go much further than "the Roman Church says so"? When you say "the recipient seemed to be clear that scripture for them was the Greek canon...", what do you mean?

Two, your claim that the Jews were arguing about the Canon until the 2nd Century is equally unimpressive. As I said, it matters nothing what was going on about what was Canon. If the writer and the readers were confused about the Canon, the term Scripture would have meant one thing for one and another for the other and that would require the writer to clarify what he meant. The absence of that clarification meant that both sides knew exactly what Scripture meant and needed no further clarification.

Then you make this very curious statement:

"That a person said " scripture " to another doesn't mean they necessarily had a set list of what was considered scripture."

What on earth do you mean? How can someone use a word for which they have no meaning in order to communicate to somebody else something that they hope that that person will understand? In what other way can the word "Scripture" be used beyond to mean "the sacred writings"? How would anyone Apostle use it without meaning some specific list of writings? Explain to me how this is not disingenuity on your part.


Ubenedictus:
Actually every Christian Church could recognise its own set of books as scripture even without a council, actually every church was gathering it own collection of writings she recognized as scripture, in fact while Paul was still alive churches were reading his letters as scripture but his letters weren't the only ones been read that way. Churches also took the letter of st Clement to the Corinthians as scripture and it was read on Sundays in some churches... So too the sherperd of Hama's. Do you recognise those books? Because they too were read as scripture in churches immediately they were written? If the criteria is that the books were immediately recognised as scripture then may Clement too and the sherperd should be scripture, if that is the criterion maybe books like Hebrew and peter shouldn't make it too because many churches rejected them.


Which brings me back to my point, Clement was instantly accepted by churches and so was Paul on what basis then do we have Paul in our bibles but not Clement, the answer is the church in council, the gospels had almost universal appeal but not Peter, yet they are both in the Bible, how come? The church accepted both.
Yes, I do recognize those names. What I don't actually see to recognize is any reason to believe that "while Paul was still alive churches were reading his letters as scripture but his letters weren't the only ones been read that way". Where did you get this information? Not from the Vatican Archives, did you? I'm guessing, probably.


Ubenedictus:
sorry but you have mixed much nonsense here.

The Bible may tell one story but it isn't one book, it is instead one line of thought and even with the deuterocanon it is still that same line.
And again, the grace thing is a greeting still used in the church today, it is not some declaration that what is been written is God's Oracle.

Lastly those who received the new testament when it was written received a lot of things, some had more books than we have others had less, there was no "feature" totally recognized by every one, if it was so all the churches would have always had the same list but that was never the case.
Go on and list out the nonsense that I mixed up. I do you the same favor, don't I?

What does your second paragraph mean if the Bible is "one line of thought" and if it "tells one story"? What is the essential difference between saying that and saying that it is one book because all the books in there share one essence? As for the deuterocanon, that is your claim and I really don't credit it. If you want it to be part of the Scriptures for you, by all means, carry on. I don't accept them as such since the Spirit in the 66 books is lacking in them. As for the greeting, I accept your argument and reiterate that with or without the presence of such a claim (which I made quite clear wasn't necessary at all), the identifying feature of Scripture is that it is "God-breathed" or "God-inspired". That is, if you cannot detect the Breath of God in it, then it is not Scripture no matter whether it makes a claim to be or does not make a claim to be Scripture.

Again, where do you get the information you post here outside of the Vatican Archives? Not that it matters since Paul himself warned at least one church that he ministered to about letters purported to be from him or "the apostles" (2 Thess 2:2,15). There may have been others so warned. If some of those churches didn't heed his warnings, then, of course, they had a confusion in their collection of writings.


Ubenedictus:
lol, I never appealed to popularity, you claimed the scriptures had a "feature" that made it recognisable to anyone, if it was so then how do you account for how come the entire church recognized the Septuagint with it deuterocanon as scripture, even those who ranked it lower is recognized it as scripture. So the entire church weren't good enough to see the feature wasn't in the deuterocanonical books and it took 1500years for Martin Luther to come and recognise that the feature is absent.

Sorry dear, you either concede that the feature is hardly recognisable or it is nonexistent or if it is existent and easily recognisable then it is the church who got it correct not the guy who came centuries later.

I have my own story, I was also a child when I noticed my mum's Jerusalem Bible has more books than the RSV we used in school, I read wisdom and sirach and I immediately recognized that it was the same with the Bible, I remember thinking those who made the decision were silly. When I grew up I noticed every one appealed to personal discernment when they can't find a clear justification for their action, anyone can make any decision and blame it on discernment, but there is an entity that is promised preservation by God and has authority to make that discernment and has the assurance of the holy spirit, I.e the church.
How do you say that you never appealed to popularity and right in the same sentence say this:

"how come the entire church recognized the Septuagint with it deuterocanon as scripture"?

And then start the very next sentence with this:

"So the entire church weren't good enough to see the feature wasn't in the deuterocanonical books..."?

Do you not understand what an appeal to popularity is?

Perhaps if you try a little harder you could get me to talk about Luther. I am not interested in your history lessons, Ubenedictus. My argument is that the Scripture says that it is God-inspired. That means that if you can detect the Spirit of God or the Breath of God in a writing, then you have Scripture on your hands. It says nothing about Luther or your Roman Church. This is why I will continue to dismiss them as red herrings. Perhaps you can now admit that you don't believe the Bible or care what it says. Maybe that could get me to talk about Luther?

There. That was my point. We all decide individually. You decide what you want to believe and others do too for reasons each prefers. This is why your church and yourself may scream it till you're blue in the face but I will still not accept the Apocrypha as Scripture. Same way no amount of atheistic noise and bluster would ever make me believe that there is no God.


Ubenedictus:
then I can also say I don't care what you think and then the discussion will break down because it is silly to be in a discussion when you don't care what the other thinks.
But wasn't that obvious from before you joined? My argument from the beginning was that the Bible identifies itself to the inquirer. No one can identify the Bible to anyone else. If you cannot believe the Bible's own testimony about itself, whatever else you choose to believe is going to be false. So, why are you here debating with me? Did I at any time indicate a need to be advised what is and what is not Scripture?


Ubenedictus:
do you need the quote from Martin Luther himself as to his mago mago?
Try a little harder. You might get it this time.

Ubenedictus:
still same issues.

The Bible does not say the Bible is God's word, the Bible did not identify its table of content, the church did.

The church did finalise on what is scripture, if you decide to hide under discernment to forward the protestant list then you may very well concede that the "feature" is not easily recognisable since your list of scripture is different from that which the church used for centuries, or the feature is nonexistent or the church did get it right.

Either way your story only make each man his own Bible creator. Let us give every man the abt 100 books that were in contention and let everyman discern for himself what should be scripture, create chaos.
You would love to believe that, wouldn't you? That would give you Romans the excellent loophole to sell whatever you want God to be saying. Unfortunately, you are not the only ones who can claim that God gave them the right to speak for Him in the world. That is why there are so many "Bibles" and "holy writings". It's a travesty, really. Again, Paul says:

2 Timothy 3:16
[16]All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness

That is, Scripture (unless you have some reason for questioning that 2 Tim 3:16 is Scripture - not that I would care though, but still) says that "all Scripture is inspired or breathed by God". So, yeah, the Bible does say that the Bible is God's Word.

As for your claim about what and what is part of the true Bible, again, "all Scripture is breathed by God". If it wasn't breathed by God, it isn't Scripture. I couldn't care less if the whole world swore that it is. So, continuing to throw your claims about the Roman Church in my face is wasting time and energy.

LOL. So, instead of so many Bible creators, let's just have any old one that can blackmail and bully its way into the top spot? No, Ubenedictus, Scripture identifies itself. Those who fail to discern it are those who don't want to discern it for themselves. This is where exactly the Roman Church belongs: among those who don't want the Bible to be the Very Word of God, just as you have so vociferously and unequivocally insisted that it does not claim to be.

BTW, your church claims the authority to tell everyone what God says and is it itself devoid of this chaos you speak of?

Then again, the books are in contention and yet there are plenty enough people who are not confused about what is Scripture and what isn't. There is always chaos on the battlefield but not so much that at least a few soldiers don't know what side they are on and what they are fighting against.


BTW, bonus point: Tobit 12 is a completely different attitude toward educating us about angels than anything you will find in the 66 books commonly accepted by Protestants.

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Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 2:47pm On Nov 09, 2018
This is all just utter bovine feces. If I said any one was unintelligent due to being a christian you will have to show me where I said so because right now you are just being a nasty libelous cretin.

And what an awful lot of words.

Ihedinobi3:

I am responding to this because it would be wrong of me to have made a false accusation of this sort against you and fail to apologize or argue for my innocence of such an accusation.

Let me put it this way: I included you because of something you said on this forum a long time ago. The same way you know my Nairaland history and brought it up when it suited you too, yours is easily accessible too.

Whether you believe that the people you were speaking of were true Christians or not, you did sneer at their lower intellectual ability compared to the atheists.

That was almost ten years ago or maybe less than that.

That attitude has not exactly changed with you. You have never, to my knowledge, ever said the exact words in question but what you have actually said amounts to the same thing including a very recent statement about Christians on the forum since MrAnony1 and I left the forum some years back.

I am not interested in a debate about this. It is of little consequence to me and to anyone who cares for Truth what your opinion of me is, especially when you think the way you do about the Bible and fellow Christians. If you had a more pleasant attitude toward these things, then I would be worried about why you see any reason to treat me differently than them.

So, again, there was no lie. I know that you make some kind of difference between some people you refer to as Christians and others you call "christians" but unless that difference is an objective one, it matters little. You do treat and speak of Christians like they are not very intelligent with some exceptions perhaps like the people you mentioned.

Because this is not anything I care that much about - being attacked in one way or another comes with the territory in apologetics, for me - I am not going to offer proof. This is not that big of a deal. You do know of what I speak. They are your posts. If you want to split hairs and insist that they say exactly that Christians don't use their brains, I will concede the point and let you have your merry way. But your post history is long and prodigious. Anyone who is that concerned can take the trouble of finding the proof for themselves. I said what I said for educational purposes, not to embarrass you.

In any case, I won't discuss this any further. Your opinion of me is noted and accepted (it was years ago too). And I choose not to care about it.

Perhaps we can now actually deal with the "sophistries", "nonarguments" and all that other more boring stuff, can we?

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Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:18pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

So you say.


About the clause in question, there is a difference between:

"(may) Grace be with you" or "the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" and other blessings like that

And

"Grace TO you and Peace FROM God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ" and other such statements.

The first is a prayer and a desire for God to grant Grace and Peace. The second is a definite statement informing the receivers that God was sending His Grace and His Peace in the letter. This is exactly like when you say that "so-and-so sends their love" or "so-and-so greets you". The difference here is that it is put at the beginning of the letter to tell the readers that, yes indeed, this letter is coming from God through our agency. He is not just sending His Grace and Peace in the manner that a loved one asks another who is writing a letter to send their love to a dear one but effectively confirming that the letter is from Him.

And when the same person greeting then bestows blessings on God himself perhaps that means that the letter is actually addressed to God and it is a message from Paul to God. After all this is how it goes innit?

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.…

2Corinthians 1


I would prefer to say that Grace and Peace from God is already an established fact just as the Blessedness of God. And what Paul is doing is stating the fact as a greeting. It is already established that God's Grace has manifest for Christians and Paul not only declares this in his salutations but he teaches his disciples to do the same.

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

15Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Titus 2

In short, The Grace of God has appeared... Therefore.... Declare it with Authority.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:26pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:



Now, that psalm along with Romans 1:19-21 is your answer. In theology, it is called Natural Revelation. That is, the whole world around us, our own consciences and the fact of physical death are all witnesses not only to the existence of God but also to His Personality. This is why I said that everyone - whether believing or not, good man or bad, Hindu or Sikh - will know that the Bible is the very Word of God Himself once they read it. Everyone of us is born knowing from the evidence of creation, death and the human conscience that God does exist and what He is like. So, we all know what is likely to be His Testimony and what isn't.

But each person possesses a God-like ability to choose to completely ignore these witnesses (as you can see from the Romans 1 passage) and make up their own "truth" and do as they please. So, of course, it is entirely possible for a human being to deny that the Bible is indeed God's Word. We can and the vast majority of us unfortunately do because we want to have life on our own terms rather than God's.

Natural Revelation, however, is not the end of the story. It does make it possible for every human being who actually wants to to recognize the Bible for what it is but it does not make the Bible understandable to everyone. We will come to that in another part of your argument.


Interestingly enough, it is my 'natural revelation' that tells me that you are a fraud. It witnesses very strongly in my heart and it is a witness that submits proofs.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:29pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:


It's entirely your prerogative what you want to believe. It's not my problem really.

I'm not sure how this is any kind of counter to what I said.

Good. You shouldn't take such a thing for granted. There are not that many people who have really bothered to learn "the inner workings of God's Mind" and there are even fewer who possess the gift of explaining it to others for their own spiritual benefit.

I wasn't a rigorous refutation of what you said. I merely said that I doubt that you understood the terms you were using and I didn't think you'd thought about it much. If it wouldn't lead us off topic I might go into why I said so a little bit more.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:37pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:


This is an example from this particular post that I am responding to. I am sure that you have some way of explaining it that will not amount to scoffing at the Bible. I will be very happy to hear your explanations:

"there are variations in the facts and figures about events contained within the bible. How many pairs of each species of animal went into Noah's Ark? One pair each, or 7 pairs of the clean ones and one pair of the unclean ones?
What Time did Jesus die? It is a very simple question that could kindly just answer for us. How many different ways can different writers say 3pm?"


"Bible" is a word that was used to describe the collection of all the sacred writings of Christianity into one volume. The common name that was used for those writings before "Bible" was "Scripture" or "Scriptures". Do you want to ask your question again?

So it is now scoffing at the bible to point out facts about it's contents. The fact is that within the bible there are 2 different accounts of how many animals were taken up into the Ark. That's just a fact. If you think that pointing that out is scoffing then I feel even more sorry for you than I started out.
What I will scoff at, not happily but with a sad heart, is your desperate mendacious need to reconcile these facts with sophistry.

While books of the bible were still being written, and while some books of the bible had not yet been written there was already reference to the Scriptures. So therefore what is being referred to as the Scriptures existed before the Bible existed. If you want to deceive yourself that Scriptures is equal to Bible please feel free, I cannot help you.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 3:51pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:

As to where the Bible said that only those who possess the Holy Spirit can understand it:

1 Corinthians 2:7-16
[7]but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
[8]the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
[9]but just as it is written, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him."
[10]For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
[11]For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
[12]Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
[13]which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
[14]But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
[15]But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
[16]For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

I'm sorry for you but in the passage where you are quoting the Bible is not mentioned. In fact the bible did not exist then. Neither is Scriptures mentioned. Paul didn't mention any writings in particular but spoke of his words and deeds when he encountered the Corinthians.
The book of Revelations did not exist when Paul wrote that and neither did the Gospel of John or many of the other letters.

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Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 5:59pm On Nov 09, 2018
PastorAIO:
This is all just utter bovine feces. If I said any one was unintelligent due to being a christian you will have to show me where I said so because right now you are just being a nasty libelous cretin.

And what an awful lot of words.


This from the man who said:

PastorAIO:


oh, okay. Yeah, I do that already but every now and again I forget. The levels of stupidity he exhibits are mindboggling. And gone are the days when there were actually other intelligent christians on NL to rein him in. The Christians have given themselves wholly over to Idiocy as their only recourse to protect their positions.

Feel free to make up straw men that suit you. And hurl any insults you can find. I can take it.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 6:03pm On Nov 09, 2018
PastorAIO:


And when the same person greeting then bestows blessings on God himself perhaps that means that the letter is actually addressed to God and it is a message from Paul to God. After all this is how it goes innit?

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.…

2Corinthians 1


I would prefer to say that Grace and Peace from God is already an established fact just as the Blessedness of God. And what Paul is doing is stating the fact as a greeting. It is already established that God's Grace has manifest for Christians and Paul not only declares this in his salutations but he teaches his disciples to do the same.

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

15Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Titus 2

In short, The Grace of God has appeared... Therefore.... Declare it with Authority.
I already accepted this argument from Ubenedictus. I agree with it. It still does not change my argument. The Bible makes the claim it makes in 2 Timothy 3:16 at least even if you don't find an explicit claim in each book of the Bible. As I also said, the proof that a writing is Scripture is neither that it claims to be nor that it doesn't claim to be. Rather it is that it contains God's essence or His Spirit. I don't see you refuting that.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 6:07pm On Nov 09, 2018
PastorAIO:


I wasn't a rigorous refutation of what you said. I merely said that I doubt that you understood the terms you were using and I didn't think you'd thought about it much. If it wouldn't lead us off topic I might go into why I said so a little bit more.
So, THAT was a refutation, just not a very rigorous one? And it was supposed to demonstrate that you had doubts about my understanding of the terms I used? I confess I'm out of my depth on this one. Your reasoning is too high for me.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 6:08pm On Nov 09, 2018
PastorAIO:


Interestingly enough, it is my 'natural revelation' that tells me that you are a fraud. It witnesses very strongly in my heart and it is a witness that submits proofs.

So, I am the issue you want to discuss. You have been trying very hard to since my entry into the conversation. And when you do discuss me, you can't avoid the insults. And you can talk about Christians who can't debate very long without throwing insults. grin

You do know what the fallacy of ad hominem is, right?
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by Ihedinobi3: 6:22pm On Nov 09, 2018
PastorAIO:


So it is now scoffing at the bible to point out facts about it's contents. The fact is that within the bible there are 2 different accounts of how many animals were taken up into the Ark. That's just a fact. If you think that pointing that out is scoffing then I feel even more sorry for you than I started out.
What I will scoff at, not happily but with a sad heart, is your desperate mendacious need to reconcile these facts with sophistry.

While books of the bible were still being written, and while some books of the bible had not yet been written there was already reference to the Scriptures. So therefore what is being referred to as the Scriptures existed before the Bible existed. If you want to deceive yourself that Scriptures is equal to Bible please feel free, I cannot help you.
First, you are right: two different accounts. Not two contradictory accounts.

Two, why did you feel the need to point out those differences? In what context did you do so?

Three, I wonder where this need of mine was demonstrated here. Can you show me where I showed that I needed to reconcile these two accounts? What I do remember is a qualified refusal to do so.

Four, your continued reference to my sophistry really just makes me wonder which you really think is the case: that I am not very intelligent or that that I am intelligent enough to make arguments that are hard to take apart even though they are false. You keep saying both things. Make up your mind.

Five, you are really weird. Again, "Bible" is the name given to the collection of Christian sacred writings into one volume. That is, it is a name that refers to the self-same thing we call Scripture and Scriptures. The Scriptures were referred to both before they were completed and after. In other words, if you want to quarrel about terms, I'll just stop saying "Bible" and start saying "Scripture" and your whole thread will be even worse off then, if possible.

You are grasping for straws, PastorAIO, and you know it.
Re: Contra Bibliolatreia II -the Septuagint by PastorAIO: 6:25pm On Nov 09, 2018
Ihedinobi3:


This from the man who said:



Feel free to make up straw men that suit you. And hurl any insults you can find. I can take it.

You are still committed to your Father of Lies. Where did I say anyone was unintelligent due to being a Christian? In that post you so desperately presented I made reference to other more intelligent christians. Just because I think you, a christian, are unintelligent does not amount to me saying all Christians are unintelligent. Unless you really believe that your intelligence represents the intelligence of all of Christianity.

PastorAIO:


oh, okay. Yeah, I do that already but every now and again I forget. The levels of stupidity he exhibits are mindboggling. And gone are the days when there were actually other intelligent christians on NL to rein him in. The Christians have given themselves wholly over to Idiocy as their only recourse to protect their positions.

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