Banjo,

<<Perhaps I should add that I consider that everybody has the right to employ whatever definition suits him for any particular term within a particular context – provided he indicates clearly exactly what that definition is. If no specific definition is indicated then one should refer to whichever meaning appears most appropriate among the various conventional senses of the word as indicated by a reputable dictionary, encyclopedia or other generally accepted authority.>>

So that makes you a relativist in terms of your value system. You can pick and choose the value that's right for you, as long as you define it.

Do you understand the logical consequences of this view? You need to give the same liberty to the paedophile, thief and HIV carrier.

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Dear OzSpen,

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You commented :

« You are myopic if you read the NT and do not see that Jesus was God, the deity. You have your anti-deity filtering device running full throttle »

I do not have an “anti-deity filtering device”, OzSpen. My mind is wide open to any good solid evidence testifying to the existence of an entity corresponding to the concept of a deity.

My understanding is that the biblical texts were written nearly 2,000 years ago for the New Testament and well over 2,000 years ago for the Old Testament, by people who claim to have been inspired by a monotheistic deity whom they never encountered and were incapable of describing in any detail. That does not qualify as good solid evidence in my humble opinion.

As I indicated on a previous occasion, I respect your beliefs, but I, personally, am not prepared to have blind faith in texts that are several generational – more or less faithful – copies of original ancestral manuscripts whose authors claim to have been inspired by some hypothetical deity whom they never encountered and were incapable of describing in any detail.

I consider that the question of the existence of a deity is far too important to be treated lightly. For such a monumental question it is totally unreasonable to accept as perfectly accurate and “God-breathed” (as you affirm), the multi-generational copy of the bible which is the only version available to us today.

Even if we disposed of the autographs themselves, for all intents and purposes, their value as testimony would be negligible due to the fact that they were written (or dictated) by devout religious individuals already gained to the cause.

Solid evidence, for a matter of this importance, should consist in a rate of concordance of at least 90% between the versions of two totally and indisputably independent, perfectly valid non-religious sources.

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Dear OzSpen,

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You quoted my explanation of word definition and commented :

« So that makes you a relativist in terms of your value system. You can pick and choose the value that's right for you, as long as you define it. Do you understand the logical consequences of this view? You need to give the same liberty to the paedophile, thief and HIV carrier »

As I indicated in the post to which you refer, dictionaries indicate the conventional, usual or common meanings of a word so that we can all understand each other when no specific meaning is provided by the person who employs it.

But dictionaries do not invent new words, nor do they add additional meanings to existing words or simply change their meanings altogether. The team of experts who compile them, revise and up-date them, keep their eyes and ears peeled to find out what is going on around them. They detect, capture and measure the frequency of change and evolution including the birth of new words and the death of old words.

It is not the dictionaries that attribute meaning to words, modify words and invent new words. We, the users, do : poets, writers, scientists, philosophers, politicians, tradesmen, publicists, jurists, street artists, hooligans, gangsters, etc.

And yes, even the paedophile, thief and HIV carrier dispose of the same liberty. Everyone does, without exception.

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Banjo,

<<My understanding is that the biblical texts were written nearly 2,000 years ago for the New Testament and well over 2,000 years ago for the Old Testament, by people who claim to have been inspired by a monotheistic deity whom they never encountered and were incapable of describing in any detail. That does not qualify as good solid evidence in my humble opinion.>>

What are your qualifications as an historian examining historical evidence of MSS? What tests are applied to MSS discovered a couple hundred years after the autographs?

<<Even if we disposed of the autographs themselves, for all intents and purposes, their value as testimony would be negligible due to the fact that they were written (or dictated) by devout religious individuals already gained to the cause.>>

Why must you continually use fallacious reasoning. Here you've done it again by committing a Genetic Logical Fallacy: http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/99/Genetic-Fallacy.

You made your argument against the reliability of Bible MSS, based on the fact that they 'were written (or dedicated) by devout religious individuals'.

You didn't evaluate the argument itself, or the history of the argument but you branded it as false because of its origin - devoutly religious people wrote them.

Are you going to brand the history of James Cook as not viable because it was written by historians who had a commitment to the historical investigation of James Cook?

You engaged in erroneous reasoning.