Re: virus: Why religious? Validity of the Bible

Lior Golgher (efraim_g@netvision.net.il)
Mon, 11 Nov 1996 21:36:30 -0800


<Objectivity may not be the finest in this message.>

Martin Traynor wrote:
> Yes indeed. Add to that the fact that it's a loose collection of
> separately produced writings in a number of languages which were
> selected by the church to support its arguments and it loses even
> more value. The very term 'The Bible' is a carefully crafted misnomer
> to give the impression that 'this is THE BOOK' when in fact it wasn't
> even A book.

Almost the whole Tanach [the book later distorted into the Old
Testamony] is written in Hebrew. It contains 24 books, while in one of
them there are some chapters written in Aramite. The Jews never claimed
to have A book, nor that it has been written by one objective source.
Anyway, The Tanach IS called "The Book of Books".

Kenneth Boyd wrote:
> Oh: what about those copies that C-14 date back to 130 AD???
>
> Note that C-14 dating does NOT have the maximum age caveat that applies
> to many other forms of radioactive-based dating methods. Unlike those, the
> initial concentration is well-defined.

First, C-14 tests have a range of 250 years to each direction, which
means the period between 120BC and 380AD rather than a fixed date. Are
you sure you're talking about the Christian bible with both of your
testamonies? I'm not sure Christianity as we know it has even existed at
130AD...

> Also, it's hard to translate books that don't exist in 270 BC. That
> applies to all of the OT.

Don't remember who said the various translations only enrich the quality
of the text. I don't agree with it anyway. It's not only hard to
translate religious books - it's almost impossible. Actually this
'almost' is just as big as our leniency towards the manipulative
translator. The Christian translators have done a horrible job
translating it all onto the Old testamony not only because they've done
it about a zillion times, but also because they all intended to fit the
text onto their own religious truths. What's so important about the
period of 270BC?

Lior.