Please be specific.
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
Veering verbose
Hehe. Define "true".
Always give God credit first.
"Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
-Sir Toby, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
James 1:19
Formerly moonglow
who you ripping this question off of?
how much evidence do you want? Fulfilled prophecies? Archeological evidences? Historical documents?
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
Let's take the correspondence theory definition (provided by J.P. Moreland): the correspondence theory of truth says that a proposition is true just in case it corresponds to reality, when what it asserts to be the case is the case. That is, when a thing is true, it is true because it corresponds to some case (or some thing) in reality, independent of the perceptions of the observer (i.e. "the bible is true because I believe it" is not a valid claim). We would have to modify this some what to take into consideration metaphors and what not, but only so far as to say that such metaphors, even if not literally true, express some greater theological truth (which corresponds to reality).Originally Posted by Buzzword
Hehe. Define "true".
By the way, what about truth doesn't make sense (your avatar)?
A thread from "Growing in Christ". And that is along the sort of answer, but is also the reason I asked for specificity (and was really asking more the younger..er folk...).
Last edited by Athanasius; May 9th 2010 at 10:14 PM.
Formerly moonglow
Oh sorry! Well the rules changes on this forum so us 'older folks' can answer but only the OP...my son is 14..want him to answer?is that young enough? lol.
God bless
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
Formerly moonglow
ok........
Fulfilled Prophecies and Other Evidence that the Bible is the Word of God
Biblical Archaeology
Ancient Documents
Ancient History
Ancient Quotations
Apocryphal
Bible
Collections
Dead Sea Scrolls
Greco-Roman
Josephus
Papyrology
Philo
Plutarch
Projects
Proving the historic Jesus
The Proof of the Bible
The Bible (from CARM website)
And this one you might be personally interested in: A Christian think tank
He also covers Philosophical/Theological Topics.
God bless
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
Formerly moonglow
Err.....have you seen the photo's of the dead sea scrolls? Don't you think if they were fakes for instance, the rest of the world would be screaming about it? Are you asking on your behalf or for the sake of those that might challenge you on this evidence?
The archeological evidence for people and places, and events in the bible are of course is always carefully looked at by those in that field that are skeptics. We don't hear anything when they can't denounce something as a fake, of which there is alot, but we sure do about the ones there is some questions about.
The historical documents again are tested and carefully looked at to be sure they are genuine too. With the skeptics constantly on our heels and anything remotely related to the bible, these findings really can't be faked.
God bless
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
I'm just asking questionsErr...
The archeological evidence for people and places, and events in the bible are of course is always carefully looked at by those in that field that are skeptics. We don't hear anything when they can't denounce something as a fake, of which there is alot, but we sure do about the ones there is some questions about.
The historical documents again are tested and carefully looked at to be sure they are genuine too. With the skeptics constantly on our heels and anything remotely related to the bible, these findings really can't be faked.
God bless
So you believe the bible is true on the authority of others?
1. The Bible claims to be true
2. Professionals who claim to have verified different aspects of the bible claim it is true
3. Therefore, the bible is true
If that's what you're saying, it's known as an appeal to authority, and while we may be justified in such an appeal, it is a very weak appeal.
Formerly moonglow
No I believe its true based on the evidence...all of it. Sure the bible say its true...but the news paper can all all the articles in it are true too...based on what evidence? Most people think everything they read on the net is true too..blindly believing. We aren't called to blindly believe.I'm just asking questions
So you believe the bible is true on the authority of others?
1. The Bible claims to be true
2. Professionals who claim to have verified different aspects of the bible claim it is true
3. Therefore, the bible is true
If that's what you're saying, it's known as an appeal to authority, and while we may be justified in such an appeal, it is a very weak appeal.
This is from the first link I gave you and I agree with the author:
Fulfilled Prophecies and Other Evidence that the Bible is the Word of God
Matthew McGee
Hopefully, this article will help remove some of the barriers that hinder many from believing that the Bible is the true Word of God. Perhaps some Christians will have their faith strengthened by the contents discussed here. Maybe some will be able to share their faith more persuasively or confidently. My personal discovery of the points herein have certainly strengthened my faith in the past.
There are many Christians who would discount an article about evidence such as this, claiming, that "people just have to take a blind leap of faith." Certainly, without faith it is impossible to please God. "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). But does it necessarily have to be a blind leap? Must one throw one's brains out the window before one can believe what the Bible says about Jesus Christ? The purpose here is to help reduce that blind leap to a confident step.
Why should we believe that the Bible is anything more than a book of fables? Does it have any true credibility that the holy books of other religions do not have?
As you pointed out its circular reason to say the bible alone proves itself. A history book can say it proves itself too...so can a math book. But you can bet people are checking their claims against the evidence.
What is sad though is when it comes to the bible people want more evidence then they demand from other things...
God bless
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
What I mean to ask is this. How much of the evidence has been under scrutiny of your own, rather than the scrutiny of others, which has then led you to belief / disbelief?No I believe its true based on the evidence...all of it. Sure the bible say its true...but the news paper can all all the articles in it are true too...based on what evidence? Most people think everything they read on the net is true too..blindly believing. We aren't called to blindly believe.
This is from the first link I gave you and I agree with the author:
Fulfilled Prophecies and Other Evidence that the Bible is the Word of God
Matthew McGee
Hopefully, this article will help remove some of the barriers that hinder many from believing that the Bible is the true Word of God. Perhaps some Christians will have their faith strengthened by the contents discussed here. Maybe some will be able to share their faith more persuasively or confidently. My personal discovery of the points herein have certainly strengthened my faith in the past.
There are many Christians who would discount an article about evidence such as this, claiming, that "people just have to take a blind leap of faith." Certainly, without faith it is impossible to please God. "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). But does it necessarily have to be a blind leap? Must one throw one's brains out the window before one can believe what the Bible says about Jesus Christ? The purpose here is to help reduce that blind leap to a confident step.
Why should we believe that the Bible is anything more than a book of fables? Does it have any true credibility that the holy books of other religions do not have?
As you pointed out its circular reason to say the bible alone proves itself. A history book can say it proves itself too...so can a math book. But you can bet people are checking their claims against the evidence.
What is sad though is when it comes to the bible people want more evidence then they demand from other things...
God bless
Every sin has death in it
Xel
What's the purpose of this thread?
If I didn"t know you and who you are I would have this thread closed and your account restricted for trolling....seriously
AmazzinThe Messiah ROSE from the DEAD to give you HIS LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS and HIS LIFE WITHOUT END.
Aufgepaßt - ich komme!
Well, the point is to ask a question, "how do you know the Bible is true?". Which I assumed would lead to a second question, "if you believe it's true on the authority of others, what have you done yourself to verify their work?" That is, how much of your own thought has gone into investigating scripture, outside of merely reading and assimilating the views of others. Now as I said above, that "appeal to authority" is fine in and of itself (most of us believe things on authority, especially when we encounter an area we don't understand or fully understand ourselves, i.e. physics). It's very easy to say, "I believe in Scripture because of these 25 things" and only really look into a few of them, while accepting the other 25 simply because its easy. For instance, while it's completely acceptable to cite the dead sea scrolls as an argument for the integrity of scripture, it's not an argument per se for the truthfulness of scripture. The argument which "proves" that Scripture has not been corrupted because of the tenacity of early scribes, the oral nature of the culture, etc. makes it difficult to likewise show that Scripture has kept its integrity because of acts of God, especially as in more modern times we see quite a few defamations of Scripture (i.e. "Jefferson's bible," New World Translation).
Or the tl;dr version: how much thought do we actually put into "this"? I'm not really looking to argue all that much over the reasons, just interested in what reasons people can provide. This just seems to be the progression of the thread.
Formerly moonglow
I will say for myself I always believed the bible was true...and I believed God was there and Jesus was His Son and the Holy Spirit more from being open to all of as a child...as Christ tells us to be. I experienced things as a child that I guess now would be considered on the supernatural realm though I knew nothing about that then. And when it comes to the supernatural...I don't know how far a person can prove it happened. In the bible they had witnesses and now through historical and archeological evidence we know these people were real and lived during this time and either wrote first hand accounts of what they saw or had close friends write them.
I can't say I had any witnesses, but I was a child and certainly wasn't concerned about evidence or witnesses. So I just always accepted the bible as true and trusted. Later when I got into encountering atheists on the internet who wanted proof, then I started researching things out. And of course double checking sites for evidences what they said was true. Sadly there are sites that claim to be Christian that their evidence doesn't hold up and they do alot of damage to those seeking. For every Christian site showing any evidence there is an atheist site trying to prove they are wrong and I have read those sites and found their evidence truly lacking. Instead of them backing up what they say by reliable non-atheist, non-Christian sites, they just say alot of outrageous things that can easily be disproven. So yea, I have done my homework...and I found it strengthened my faith because I could always find true and accurate evidence.
As far as our current bible being reliable the dead sea scrolls actually prove it is.
The only minor errors are numbers..such as number of livestock..the number of men, age of someone..those are minor translation errors that don't change the meaning of each part of the bible.
Of course this doesn't stop other types of 'bibles' from being printed and used by people that aren't true. But those using the JW bible are forbidden to do any comparing to other bibles...But for us, we have the freedom to compare translations to each other and explore and research as far and as deep as we want to go.
God bless
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated?" - D A Carson
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