What do you mean by this?Im sinning like everyone does.I dont feel some specific way in my ordinary life.There are times where im more relaxed and sometimes where im not.I cant understand the question really
I dont understand that either sorryy!!
I sin the same. That is not what I meant. Do you feel the Holy Sprit convict you of this? Do you have any sort of personal experience with God? I feel a deep connection to God when I pray even though I definitely do not hear voices in return or get answers like some people. My experiences with God are enough for me in terms of evidence.
The other part was just an observation. Questions are good. Keep asking. The God of truth isnāt afraid of them.
Vinnie
Like a mystical one?No.Ive been looking for it for a while.Any suggestions are welcomed.
Well i dont feel that way when i pray.And ive tried it many times.It just doesnt work.Like mumbling in the air is most likely what it is.I know the bible says it works and the people here claim the same(ive also made a thread on this a long time ago)but i dont believe in it anymore,In other words"Prayers wont save you"
Well God might not be however the Bible āHis Wordā it might be
I do "talk " to God sometimes i guess.When im in a very sad state sometimes.It does help but meehhh only for the time beign
Yes, and the answer is you donāt KNOW. There are things that cannot be proven. Basing your beliefs on your experience with God (as opposed to knowing something through logical deduction, empirical evidence, or scientific proof) is what all Christians must do at some point. Thatās not āblindā faith. But if you insist that the Bible be something it clearly isnāt, you are just going to be disappointed. Its truth claims are not something you can āprove.ā
1 Like
So why this forum exactly?Why the apologetics?Whats all the fuzz about?Why we are trying to explain that the Bible is compatible with evolution since it does not matter because we cant prove it. Why did Origen spent his time on his works defending the borth of Jesus that a pagan was blaspheming since he couldnt prove he wasnt born from a man? Tell me whats the difference in your statement than a flat earthers saying āI cant prove earth is flat neither do you but i believe it isā
I cannot relate at all to your idea that the Bible doesnāt matter unless you can āproveā it. I believe it contains communication from God that reveals truth and love and grace. Thatās why it matters. I donāt think of things like the virgin birth or the resurrection as scientifically disprovable assertions comparable to āthe earth is flatā
2 Likes
I think we live an age that gets hung up on details in way the previous generations, including during the long age of biblical composition did not. We ask questions of the bible for which it never written to answer. The stories convey theological truth without needing to be precise. The gospels are variance with each other on what exactly took place but the church that adopted the texts did not seem to see that as problem. We have stories about finding the tomb empty and the disciples experiencing His risen presence why are obviously founded on something real that changed their lives so they went out to proclaim even if the details that got into the gospels are not as in precise agreement we would like them too have.
The gospels were written to meet community needs with stories handed on from previous years of telling in the church. That does not mean they are unreliable in giving us basis for our own faith in Him. Itās just not the āinfallibleā details some prefer to have. I have no doubt there is real history and real truth behind the written word, because of the powerful impact Christ had on His disciples and so many others since. We make connections with it by the operation of the Holy Spirt that leads us too Christ.
Good points. Our pastor spoke on Galatians this morning, and it relates in that Paul speaks of false gospels, and of how his gospel came from revelation from God, and not from man. (Guess that is the ultimate appeal to authority, but anyway.) In any case, it reminded me of how we tend to try to make scripture say what we want, instead of letting God reveal himself to us through scripture.
1 Like
The problem is compounded because we have one word with no less than three different meanings.
- Thereās the āgospelsā written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; more if you want to drag in the apocryphal/pseudepigraphical gospels.
- Then thereās āThe Gospel,ā which I equate with the work of God our Father through our Lord Jesus the Annointed One.
- Then there are āthe other gospels,ā bearers of which Paul said: āį¼Ī½Ī¬ĪøĪµĪ¼Ī± į¼ĻĻĻā.
The capitalization goes the other way around. Itās the Gospels (according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the gospel, the euangelion.
1 Like
Whereās your badge?
2 Likes
Itās right there beside her name. And unlike the rest of us, she actually has the degrees to back it up too!
We promise ā¦ there wonāt be any tear gas or billy clubs involved. As long as things donāt get too wild.
4 Likes
That has nothing to do with my question im afraid,nor the topic if the Bible has been edited.I hear the same arguments here everytime this gets thrown arround.People claiming that they "felt God"while reading the Bible and that the Bible didnt did anything to them rather than God.What they are missing though is that if that was the case the Bible wouldnt be there in the first place.People would just believe by āfeeling Godā
1 Like
Just nobody start on Word of God, and weāll all live in peace.
5 Likes
My $0.02 worth. Any editing, if you are talking about willful changes from the original autographs, would have to have been done very early in the process of producing copies of the originals. The copies were sent to widely separated geographic locations, translated into different languages, and quoted by the very early Church Fathers. Since the copies were all done by hand it is possible to trace the small changes and identify the possible source for a given document.
Christy did recommend a good book on the development of the canon but I havenāt seen anything written for a layman on textual criticism which is how any editing would be detected. It is my impression that much of the work done is subject to the professionalās judgement and I am not able to judge which professionalās opinion is correct, or maybe it should just be more correct.
For an older list of textual criticism works see
I agree that in cases where we really want God to exist, itās all the better for us to question our thinking. We want the truth.
1 Like
Only one Word of God and itās not a book 
4 Likes
Oddly enough, that is exactly what textual scholars claim to see in the tradition. The further back we go, the more diverse the manuscripts and patristic citations get. Until we get to a period about 100 years or so after each NT book when we really have difficulty discerning how many changes occurred since the record is mostly silent. But if the trend of increasing diversity continues as we go backwards in timeā¦
Many of the known changes are not as small as some thinkā though I would say the overall forest of the NT text is on decent ground. This is another reason against proof-text hunting or building theology based on one or two passages.
āAutographsā are one of the most misleading concepts in apologetics today. Just like the Pentateuch and Isaiah were written over long periods of time by several authors, there were probably different versions of some the New Testament books but in this case produced by the same authors of those works. Different cases but the question remains the same for all: which version is the inspired one? Iād guess the latest āautographā would be the answer. There could have been different versions by early copyists as well. We know Marcion edited the text of Luke. Celsus accused Christians of modifying the Gospels multiple times to avoid contradictions and even Origen who wrote against him pointed out all the different versions of Matthew in the early 3rd century.
The Gospel of John was clearly redacted and the text itself is so jumbled in places, exegetes have been trying to correct its order since Tatian in the second century. Forget itās textual tradition, itās compositional history looks highly complicated.
The Western (a misnomer) and Alexandrian texts of Acts are both early and share many differences to the point that a lot of scholars think Luke may have revised his own work at times which could have led to this eventually.
Fitzmyer thinks Luke published Luke without an infancy narrative then added it in a later edition based on the nature of chapter 3.
2 Corinthians is at least two separate letters and maybe several more. That Paul wrote the letter over a long period of time (several months in numerous spurts) can explain some of its disjointed nature and hard seams but not all.
If you really think about it from a textual perspective, Matthew is just an expansion of Mark from the vantage point of the synoptic problem. Similarly, 2 Peter is comparable to a second century expansion of the text of Jude, which is largely found inside it.
An āautographā is a very complicated term when evangelists themselves may have published different versions of their own works, and early redactions and interpolations occurred so early they donāt show up in the textual record. I consider the redacted version of John to be canonical. Inspiration really applies to scripture as best as we can reconstruct it to its extant form in the 2D century and on. Rather than a one off āautographā, inspiration works better as a continued process in some cases. That is, after all, the road to canonizing the right books.
Well you did a good job of making my point.
1 Like