Do you believe in a supernatural creator, God or gods of any sort?

[Doulos]

1) Oral versus Written Culture

- We've found no record of the hypothetical Q gospel, and part of the reason may be that it was an oral transmission.

Oral culture will follow the Chinese telephone game no matter how superhuman the people were that memorized the stories. Unless… unless they memorized from an objectified source, meaning text. Whoever it is that was the “original” witness or source of the stories would have to dictate his account for the rest of his life to even approximate the fidelity that can be attained by memorizing written sources. Which brings back my original issue with this…. Where is the original text, or at least the text that people used as a memorization source?

Gotta run, so I'm just going to address the 1st part of your post.

What you're saying is a common assumption from people in non-oral cultures. Studies and research has demonstrated that this is not factually correct in oral cultures however. I'm afraid I can't think of books on the topic off the top of my head, but a good librarian should be able to point you towards one of the major studies on this issue.

Depending upon her areas of specialization in anthropology, Olivia may be able to suggest relevant texts as well.

[Interbane]

Studies and research has demonstrated that this is not factually correct in oral cultures however.

Show me the studies. I don't believe they would serve to defend the bible in this case. If a story has been around for hundreds of years, I'm sure a high degree of fidelity can be achieved with cultural safeguards against deviant information.

But for a story to sprout up and achieve high fidelity within years of it's creation... I simply don't see that happening. It's wishful thinking.

[Penelope]

Olivia:

Lol. Sorry if my thoughts aren't very coherent here. I've been up for like 26hrs.

Body heals when your asleep, and mind reshuffles the pack. Why on earth are you not sleeping girl? Go to bed at once!!

Interbane:
Show me the studies. I don't believe they would serve to defend the bible in this case. If a story has been around for hundreds of years, I'm sure a high degree of fidelity can be achieved with cultural safeguards against deviant information.

But for a story to sprout up and achieve high fidelity within years of it's creation... I simply don't see that happening. It's wishful thinking.

Neuro-linguistic programming shows that, with words, you can affect the brain impulses. Make people believe anything!

NLP - is a powerful phenomenon and, it works.

We need empirical evidence for all our close-held beliefs, but we also need to be aware that there is such a thing as inspiration.

Inspiration that creates, art, music, poetry......that is nothing to do with evidence.....but it is every bit as wondrous. It demonstrates for me, that we humans are much, much more than flesh, blood, bones and brains. We are stardust.

Me, and you both, Tinkerbell!

[Olivia22]

I mainly work in forensic anthropology but I've read some great books on Oral Cultures. I can't remember the titles right now but I still have them stored at my office. Interbane if you're interested I can get the titles for you when I go back to work on Monday.

Olivia:

Lol. Sorry if my thoughts aren't very coherent here. I've been up for like 26hrs.

Body heals when your asleep, and mind reshuffles the pack. Why on earth are you not sleeping girl? Go to bed at once!!

I know, I know! My cousin's newborn was taken to the hospital with a high fever last night and her husband is in the army couldn't go with her so I did. The baby is fine now. Unfortunately I couldn't take the day off work to sleep because I took a couple of days last week when she was actually having the baby. Lol.

[Cattleman]

Olivia, you are a saint.

[Robert Tulip]

[What you're reading is a dictionary-encyclopedia entry talking about variant readings due to "orthography or grammar or style and have no effect upon the meaning of the text" (Keith R. Crim, George A. Buttrick, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville TN: Abingdon Press, 1962) p. 595 ...this passage follows immediately after the text you posted).

Apologetic lies are so unbecoming. No, there are other words "immediately" between these two.

And what do they say?

Many thousands of these different readings are variants in orthography or grammar or style and have no effect upon the meaning of the text. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the meaning of the text

Doulos has deliberately distorted the text here, leaving out the phrases I have bolded in order to advance a blatantly false apologetic interpretation, suggesting the Interpreter's Dictionary supports his false claim.

The resurrection text at Mark 16, the adulterous woman at John 8 and the blatant anti-Gnostic bigotry of the change of King of Ages to King of Nations or Saints alone might well make up more than the 0.5% of manuscript variation claimed by Doulos.

[Penelope]

Doulos wrote:

Religious Tolerance speaks a lot about 'us', but it's virtually all the views of one man; Bruce Robinson. If you read the 'About Us' section, this is quite apparent, and I recall he used to be more explicit about the site being his personal viewpoint.

Much of Robinson's post is questionable here, as he puts in a lot of his own interpretation of things rather than letting the text speak.

There is no opinion or interpretation in the chart shown. It is just facts, comparing one text in one gospel with a text in another, so that we can check the discrepancies ourselves, and, also, pointing out that there are claims made about Jesus in the gospel of Saint John, which are not mentioned in the other three.

It is evidence, fact, not opinion.

[Robert Tulip]

Doulos wrote: Religious Tolerance speaks a lot about 'us', but it's virtually all the views of one man; Bruce Robinson. If you read the 'About Us' section, this is quite apparent, and I recall he used to be more explicit about the site being his personal viewpoint. Much of Robinson's post is questionable here, as he puts in a lot of his own interpretation of things rather than letting the text speak.

There is no opinion or interpretation in the chart shown. It is just facts, comparing one text in one gospel with a text in another, so that we can check the discrepancies ourselves, and, also, pointing out that there are claims made about Jesus in the gospel of Saint John, which are not mentioned in the other three.
It is evidence, fact, not opinion.

Hi Penelope. Doulos has given us a fine example of the ad hominem fallacy, playing the man rather than the ball. I mean, why would you address the content of an argument when you can make vague generalised attacks on the person raising it?

But Doulos has a good point that Robinson makes questionable claims. Robinson seems to assume Jesus Christ existed as a real person, when in fact there is no evidence whatsoever for this outlandish claim.

The incompatibilities between the Synoptics and John suggest both are equally fictional. How could the fantastic John tradition have emerged if the Synoptic stories were generally known to be true? But of course, all the early texts were destroyed, doubtless because they proved the church propaganda was all lies. If these early texts corroborated the later fictions, surely they would have been venerated and preserved?

[Penelope]

Robert:

But Doulos has a good point that Robinson makes questionable claims. Robinson seems to assume Jesus Christ existed as a real person, when in fact there is no evidence whatsoever for this outlandish claim.

I wouldn't say that it was such an outlandish claim, Robert. There might have been a charismatic teacher around at that time. It is the claims that are made about him after his death which are outlandish. Gandhi wasn't much to look at, and I've seen the little room where he lived and wrote, very bare and simple, but he has had a great impact on, not only his own people, but people from all over the world. I imagine that Jesus would have been very like Gandhi. When I went to see his shrine in Delhi, we were required to remove our shoes, as it is considered to be holy ground, where he was assassinated, and the stone pathway burnt the soles of my feet. There happened to be several Europeans there that day, as well as Indians. We, Europeans, all oohed and aahed about our feet, and it was the Indian people who showed us how to behave - with reverence, I dare say it would be because their 'innocence of ceremony hadn't be drowned, as ours was after World War I.

I must admit that I don't know anything about Robinson, I was only using the chart/table with the texts which was useful because it didn't have any added comments, just good for comparison.

There are lots of other similar examples showing such discrepancies on the interweb, but I just came upon that one first.

And, I find it much easier to love a simple Gandhi-like person, than a Superman. I would be interested in what He really had to say.

Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi - all followed one another through history....and they never told us what to think...they only told us how to be. Just be.

I am convinced that somebody once said:-

'Peace I give unto you. My peace I leave with you.
Not as the World giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your hearts be troubled
neither let them be afraid.'

That person, whomever he may have been, knew what made me tick anyway.

[Olivia22]

Olivia, you are a saint.

Thanks for saying that but I'm not really. She is one of the very few people I would do that for.