(03-13-2022 07:15 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I find that odd personally, as the more I actually understand how the Bible was organically put together the more deeply it speaks to me of a God that (a) never has abandoned his people and (b) has to date fulfilled all of his promises except Christ's return. And, I might add made crystal clear the conditions in which it would happen.

And, I've always found that those who keep studying all aspects of it tend to strengthen their ability to reject the arguments of unbelievers. We are saved by grace and faith, but were we not commanded to put on the full armor of God? Righteousness is our breastplate and that comes in obedience which is rooted in knowing whose we are, what we have been told, and in upholding it. We live by every word which has proceeded from the mouth of God. Does a God who loves his people not reach out to them in exile and teach them how to be productive whether in Egypt, or Babylon? Does he not smite their oppressors as in Germany? Does he not ultimately smite death with a second life if God is faithful and eternal? Does he not chasten those who fall into wickedness?

Mortimer Adler, an Aristotelean philosopher and agnostic set out to prove, late in his life to his wife and daughter, that faith in the God of the Bible was false, as were all religions After analyzing all of the worlds religions, including that of his parents, Judaism, he accepted Christianity late in life as being the only logical religion known to humanity in that humanity is by choice sinful and therefore imperfect and only a perfect God which created it would accept it as flawed, forgive it, and love it, and promise it life when all other gods would condemn it and destroy it, and in the midst of its sin sacrifice part of its own divinity to understand its condition and grant it forgiveness by the grace of its own choice, rather than by its constant obedience. He found the relationship between a perfect God and an imperfect creation only logical in grace and no other religion had this. Some had works, some had martyrdom, some had wisdom, and some saw merit in love, but none had this tangible physical relationship between the deity and the people. Judaism came the next closest but ultimately did not believe that God had come physically to experience creation woes. Adler said if there indeed was a perfect creator and it could not be proven because faith was the requirement that only the God of the Christians demonstrated an active, loving and just God.

So that brings us full circle to the conundrum of faith and knowledge. For those who believe proof can't be necessary because ours is a God of Faith. And for those who don't believe no amount of proof will ever be sufficient because they have no faith in things larger than their own understanding. But we can't find fault with science, other than in its error for it, like religion, is a pursuit of truth, and just as with religion you need discernment to sort out the erroneous and the false, and study will always help in the sorting. Therefore Eric, my faith is sufficient but my study of all things related to it informs my discernment which is part of my armor and I fear no man's theories and will engage them without fear, with curiosity, and with informed skepticism and what truth I can find in them does me good, and what falsehood I find in them I can take to task. It's the scientific method bolstered by faith which enables me to be strengthened by the process. To be afraid of another's ideas is to be bound by a lack in confidence of you own faith. I'm never afraid of an idea, but I am very wary of those who condemn thinking. Faith in God liberates thought when tempered with obedience to his commandments and commission. Our minds are not sufficient to destroy God because they aren't sufficient to comprehend God's mind. But, our hearts are sufficient to witness his love, and to be afraid of another's idea is to be prevented from showing them our own, which is where testimony resides in any encounter. Let not your hearts be troubled also means have no fear. I have always found that those who seek to learn enough to trip up most, never pursue the topic sufficiently to dissuade those who learn all aspects of it out of a sincere desire to understand it. The greeting of all Angels begins with "Fear not!" Why? The faithful have nothing to fear from a loving God.

I never suggested its bad to study how the Bible came about, its very well documented here how much emphasis I personally put on illustrating how the Bible came into being. You are preaching to the choir on this point, there are a whole bunch of threads where I have pushed the point that its vital we understand how the Bible and NT came about for the purposes of apologetics and being able to give a strong answer. Not only for the unbeliever but for the believer themself to understand that our faith is not based on blind faith nor should be be double minded or doubting in our faith.

Its well documented here how much I push and emphasis this issue.

But because the Bible goes back 3+ thousand years and because of the history of Israel and its destruction by Babylon, there is a cut off point to where there are simply no surviving manuscripts that go back to Moses because #1 manuscripts do not survive 3500 years and #2 Israel was completely destroyed around 600 BC by Babylon. So we don't have manuscripts that date back that far, but we do have copies of the OT that we can date back as far as the post Babylon/Persian era. That places them at minimum a few centuries before Christ which is the real key dividing line for Christianity and Biblical apologetics. That illustrates and proves (along with the documented formation of the NT) that these things were not made up after the fact.

But when we reach as far back as 3000 or more years and get into source theories on torah, we are well past the point of manuscript and textual documentation and into purely speculative realm. And the very basis of those speculations (which I think are destructively inaccurate) typically are that the Torah and earliest parts of the OT are not true in their origins and authors as written in the text. Which again is a wildly speculative point that can't be proven or disproven that really does us no tangible good in Biblical apologetics as far as illustrating the basis of Christ, the Bible and the NT. Granted they do not all say the torah is just a man made document centuries after Moses, but many do and I think that is very destructive and dangerous.

For me its akin to debates over the flood and the Garden of Eden. We can't prove or disprove any of those things because they happened so long ago. And the Bible does not seem designed with the intent of proving those things as historical or using them as evidence and proof, the intent seems to be a historical record that we accept based on our faith in God's Word. When it comes to evidence that the text is God's word, that flows from the later period of Israel and the prophets, and how they led to the time of Christ, the crucifixion and the church age. That is the aspect that gives us a mountain of supernatural evidence for the text because its so impossible for all these things to be known and designed ahead of time if its man made.

Again, that seems to be the overall intent of the text from the beginning, because it is clearly designed around that aspect.