Have you ever heard it said—or said it yourself—that if all the Bibles and Biblical manuscripts in the world were destroyed tomorrow, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the NT from the writings of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers alone? Recently, while listening to an interview featuring NT textual critic, Daniel Wallace, I learned that this claim is demonstrably false.[1] Unfortunately this has been repeated in one form or another by many individuals, including prominent NT textual critics.
Apparently this misinformation began to circulate widely in 1841 with the publication of Robert Philip’s memoir of John Campbell titled The Life, Times, and Missionary Enterprises of the Rev. John Campbell. The Life contains a written anecdote of Campbell, who was rehearsing a story told to him by Reverend Dr. Walter Buchanan pertaining to the research David Dalrymple conducted into the church fathers’ citations of the NT. According to Campbell, Buchanan and Dalrymple were both in attendance at a literary party when someone raised the question: “Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the three first centuries?” No one had an answer. According to Campbell, two months later Dalrymple contacted Buchanan and reported to him that he had taken up the question raised at the party, researched the writings of the church fathers, and had an answer to the question. According to Campbell, Buchanan told him that Dalrymple told Buchanan he discovered that all but 7 or 11 verses (Dalrymple could not recall the exact number) of the NT were quoted in the early church fathers.
Fortunately for us we have Dalrymple’s notes. Unfortunately they do not corroborate Buchanan’s story. Based on several dates provided in Dalrymple’s notes, we know he was working on this project for no less than four years (1780-84)—not two months. And more importantly, Dalrymple did not discover that all but 7 or 11 verses of the NT are quoted in the Ante-Nicene fathers. Instead, he found that only 46% of the verses in the NT could be reconstructed from the writings of the church fathers (3620), meaning 54% (4336) of NT verses are missing (Wallace said that Dalrymple found all but 11 verses of the Gospel of John in the Ante-Nicene fathers, but Dalrymple’s notes do not bear this out).
Campbell related this story some 50 years after Buchanan shared it with him, which was itself “some time after” the event in question.[2] So either Buchanan misunderstood Dalrymple, or Campbell misunderstood Buchanan’s telling of the story, or Campbell “misremembered” what Buchanan had reported to him five decades earlier. Whoever deserves the blame for creating the myth may never be known, but now that we know it is a myth, let us not be blamed for perpetuating it. While a significant portion of the NT text was quoted by the early church fathers—and that is significant—we should present the facts as they are, and not as we once thought them to be.
[1]This was brought to light by Muslim apologists, going back as far as May 2007 as far as I can tell. See http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/citations.html, which serves as the basis for the majority of the information that follows.
[2]Campbell seems to have recorded his anecdotes in the six months prior to his death in 1840. He said Buchanan told him the story about 50 years earlier (~1792), and at that time “some time” had already passed since the actual event. The latest date contained in Dalrymple’s notes comes from 1784, so there may have been as many as eight years between the event in question and Buchanan’s retelling of it to Campbell.
January 17, 2012 at 4:46 am
It has been said that the essence of the New Testament is contained in the book of John. Someone said that if he could have only one book of the Bible on a deserted island, he would take the Book of John. If all but 11 verses of the 4th Gospel are contained in the Ante-Nicene writtings, maybe that is the source of the original misunderstanding.
On a similar note, the writings of Papias ( who was a friend of Polycarp, and Polycarp knew John) were contained in 5 volumes and they somehow disappeared (about 1100, I think). It is thought that Papias was widely read, but we have only fragments that come from those sources who quoted him.
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January 17, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Actually, while Wallace said that Dalrymple found all but 11 verses of John, the website I referenced in my footnotes shows that 100s of verses from John’s Gospel are missing from the Ante-Nicene fathers.
The loss of Papias’ work is an absolute tragedy. Oh how I wish it would be discovered!
Jason
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January 17, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Thanks for that important and useful information Jason, while I never used that point in my defense of the Bible, I have read it and heard it stated by ministers. In fact, the reason I never used it was because I notice that it never was accompanied by an original source reference and there are just to many verses that I just could not see church Fathers include in their writings.
There are many connecting passages that are not needed when quoting a verse to make a point. I also do not share the level of admiration and trust for the “church fathers” as a whole that some seem to though I acknowledge the importance and benefit of some of their work.
Your advice is sound and I hope that this information will reach those who adore the church fathers so that when the atheist and liberals get a hold of this, they won’t get much use out of hammering some believers with it.
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January 17, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Danzil,
The value of the Church Fathers is not necessarily their theology, but the fact that they refer to books of the NT and quote from them. Since most of our manuscript evidence comes after the 4th century, it proves that certain NT books existed early in church history, and can confirm that the text has not undergone substantial changes between their day and our first extant manuscripts.
Jason
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January 24, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Non-believer here.
I find this disclosure fascinating. Is this the Christian equivalent of Piltdown Man? How did this remain unchallenged for so long?
I first heard this about 5 years ago and I believe it was Gary Habermas on video. I have to admit I was immediately suspicious and it was on my list of 5 questions to ask Bart Ehrman should our paths cross.
Now in other weird questions, I would like to pose to Biblical scholars . . .
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January 24, 2012 at 12:08 pm
I’m not sure why it remained unchallenged for so long, but I am glad it was challenged. Unfortunately that challenge had to come from Muslim apologists, and most Christian apologists are still not aware of the issue.
Well, if you would have asked Bart Ehrman he may have also told you it was true since it was also included in his book co-authored with Bruce Metzger (according to the Muslim website I referenced in my post — although they say that the book does not say the precise number of verses or delimit the time frame of the Church Fathers’ writings)!
Jason
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January 24, 2012 at 12:18 pm
How unfortunate. The claim smelt wrong and I missed my chance to jump on it in 2007. I could have authored a book and been on the speaking circuit right now. Oh well, next time. I think I’ve seen it in one of the Strobel or Papa McDowell schlock books too, but I am less certain of that.
One of the big lessons I learned at my Christian college is primary sources, people, primary sources. Thank you Dr. Kolb.
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January 24, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Thanks Jason for this post. It is interesting and humbling to read as I have used that statement myself, which I heard from Charlie Campbell when I first took up studying apologetics.
I need to check my site and make sure I don’t reference this argument there as I desire to be intellectually and factually honest.
I would say this is one of the flaws of living in such an information rich age, one simply has no time to go back and check all the facts ‘first-hand.’
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January 31, 2012 at 4:37 pm
I just want to comment on the Islamic awareness site. What does everyone think about it? Apprantly Daniel Wallace has praised it but I’m not happy about this as it’s a anti-christian site and a top scholar like Wallace praising it can only mean their information is accurate.
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January 31, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Oliver,
At first it seemed like you were saying you didn’t trust the information at that site because it came from enemies of the Christian faith, but then when you said if Wallace gave his thumbs up it must be legit. So I’m confused on what your view is. Do you question the legitimacy of their findings or not? Personally, it appears that their research is legit. They even have pictures of the guys notes, showing many verses that were blank, indicating that he found no reference to those verses in the Fathers.
Jason
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January 31, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Thanks for your reply.
Well it’s hard to trust a site that writes 100s of articles trying to ‘debunk’ the Christian faith but since a top Christian scholar has given it thumbs then their likely to be doing good research. I have read a couple of articles from that website and it seems like they want to prove the Bible is unreliable which is expected from a Islamic site.
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January 31, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that we should be skeptical when dealing with those who have an axe to grind, but their research looks legit. Sometimes non-Christians are more apt to see our errors than we are, so we should welcome their criticisms…with an equally critical eye of course.
Jason
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January 31, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Their research does look reliable yes but I have seen some Christian sites write rebuttals to them. But on the 11 verses, I think they are probably right. I was amazed myself when I heard that argument but 46% is still a good number of verses. About welcoming their criticisms, I agree but it’s not suprising since Christianity is probably the most attacked religion and has dealt with criticism ever since it was formed.
By the way, how can I contact you? I have a couple of questions.
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January 31, 2012 at 5:39 pm
You can email me: jasondulle at yahoo.com
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January 31, 2012 at 5:49 pm
I just sent you an email.
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February 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Jason did you get my email?
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February 1, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Yes I did. I just haven’t had a chance to read and respond to it yet.
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February 1, 2012 at 6:13 pm
Okay. Take your time in answering it, I just wanted to make sure you received it.
Thanks 🙂
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February 20, 2012 at 6:26 am
Reblogged this on With All I Am and commented:
Is it true that the entire New Testament minus 11 verses could be constructed from the writings of the early church fathers? Explaining the origin of this myth.
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February 29, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Apparantly this has made its way around pretty fast!
http://tektonticker.blogspot.com/2012/02/one-good-myth-deserves-another.html?m=1
Holding’s points clarify a lot.
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March 3, 2012 at 8:56 am
I’ve made this reply on Tekton:
Ah, the fine print.
I probably am the non-Christian you cite as citing Habermas and Strobel or McDowell.
Case B or like cases are clearly unimpressive as an apologetic’s defense. We can almost throw a stone from 1400 to the age of Luther. Regardless of whether we’re technically talking Case A or Case B, it leaves an impression to the layman that before the Bible entered wide distribution it could be duplicated from the writings of CONTEMPORANEOUS church fathers.
So I’m curious who and how far back you can push 5 randomly selected verses:
35th verse of Mark 10
25th verse of Acts 18
51st verse of John 8
5th verse of Revelations 20
3rd verse of Matthew 11
Live well,
B. Andrew
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March 5, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for the link Derek. I largely agree with J.P. Holding and I’m in the process of writing an update for the article to correct the false impression.
Jason
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April 4, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Jason, sorry to leave this request here, but I could find no simple “contact” page. I am preparing a powerpoint on the Evidence for the Resurrection, saw the “Empty Tomb” image on your website, and am interested in using it. Is it yours? Can i use it? Does it belong to someone else?
John T. Tolbert
Taiwan
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April 4, 2012 at 10:40 pm
John,
No, it’s not mine. I got it from the web via a Google images search. I couldn’t tell you whose it is.
Jason
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April 11, 2012 at 5:37 am
[…] we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the NT just by reading the Church Fathers , but this has been disproven as an apologetic urban legend. It is more likely that the Gospel of John could be reconstructed in this […]
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April 28, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Jason, you still haven’t replied to my question
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July 13, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Oliver,
Are you referring to a question you emailed me? Did I respond yet? Sorry, I get too many emails to keep track. If I haven’t, resend it to me. Thanks!
Jason
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September 18, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Just found this on another website. Similar assertion but lacks supportings resources http://www.gotquestions.org/original-Bible.html
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June 24, 2013 at 11:48 am
Interesting article. Regardless of Dalrymple’s results, it seems to me that the question “Could the contents of the New Testament be recovered from the writings of the three first centuries?” would be an excellent research project for serious scholars. The point isn’t that all the New Testament ought to be in their writings, however, a full comparison would be excellent to know.
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July 20, 2013 at 11:07 pm
46% is reasonably good external backing to what was in the early versions of the Bible. Especially in regards to arguments that centres around omissions or additions to the text. An argument based on the Codex Sinaiticus being oldest manuscript and does not contain some of the text that the received text has in its copies, but if the early church fathers are referring to to supposed missing text, then maybe they where originally there. We should bear in mind that there is always scope for more discoveries that could shed additional light upon the subject and might even alter that percentage above 46%. Who knows what was available to the early church fathers that we no longer have access to today, or at least is laying dormant waiting to be discovered?
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January 7, 2015 at 6:30 pm
If Wallace knew then why does he say this in his debates? I’ve heard him use it. Even up til recently
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February 4, 2015 at 1:20 am
littleg00se, if you read J.P. Holding’s brief comments at http://tektonticker.blogspot.com/2012/02/one-good-myth-deserves-another.html?m=1 it will clarify this. It’s true that one can reconstruct all of the NT except for ~11 verses from the church fathers (which includes all writings up to ~A.D. 1200). It’s just not true that one can do so from the Ante-Nicene fathers alone. So Wallace is accurate. What’s inaccurate is to claim that the NT could be reconsructed from the writings of the church fathers in the ~250 years following the age of the apostles.
Jason
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March 12, 2016 at 9:42 am
The fact that so many verses of the NT, if not even close to all, are quoted in the writings of the early church fathers should be a great encouragement to Christians that the NT we have today is extremely close to the autographa
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May 25, 2017 at 4:16 am
[…] https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/modern-myth-all-but-11-verses-of-the-nt-could-be-const… […]
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May 25, 2017 at 4:19 am
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2017/05/18/value-of-the-apostolic-fathers-quotations/
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December 9, 2018 at 4:14 pm
I have been researching what the correct number should be, and I have come up with about 63%. The data is here at https://www.biblequery.org/Bible/BibleCanon/EarlyChristianNTQuotes.xls
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December 9, 2018 at 9:52 pm
“Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the three first centuries?”
The answer must be “NO”. If all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed the writings of the first 3 centuries would presumably also have been destroyed.
Since the New Testament is derived from the writings the hypothetical question is meaningless. It’s a snakes and ladders game for scholars perhaps but meaningless otherwise0 and I can’t see any value in the speculation.
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December 16, 2018 at 1:56 pm
The original question implied that all of the New Testaments were destroyed at the end of the 3rd century, i.e. after the Pre-Nicene church fathers wrote their works. I have no idea why you think the Ne Testament is derived from the church fathers. For example, p46 (the Chester Beatty II manuscript) contains 70% of Paul and Hebrews. That is 1,680 verses. It was written about 100-150 A.D. AMong the early Christian writings we only have 40% of Hebrews and 53% of Paul, so even ignoring the fact that most of the Pre-Nicene writings were after that time, we could not get 70% from the early church writings. You have to give some evidence why you assert something, otherwise we can only assume that what you say is just wishful thinking. About an hour from now I will have an updated version of NT quotes at https://www.biblequery.org/Bible/BibleCanon/EarlyChristianNTQuotes.xls. It will have a new tab for which verses are in which manuscripts prior to 350 A.D. Do you have any date upon which to make your assertions?
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December 16, 2018 at 4:00 pm
Religion was formulated on wishful thinking and no belief has ever been more wrong than religion’s idea of guilt tripping sin.
The following statements are the most inaccurate and ungodly assertions made. Only the dogma of self appointed messengers to a created God, could have dictated and promoted religion to the world as a factual belief system. Religious belief systems have never been based on fact, nor can they be; otherwise, they would be knowledge based systems.
“……….In God’s eyes, all of us are failures in who we are. On our own, we have no hope of ever satisfying God’s demands for justice without going to Hell forever. God made for us a great and certain hope in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins as to satisfy the demands of justice……….” (Statements of High crimes, misdemeanors and baloney)
The narrative invented by religious zealots who then proceeded to give all the attributes of man to their created God thereby inventing a God created in the image of man. The complete opposite of what they teach—— that man was made in the image of God ……….and failures at that!
LET ME CORRECT THE ERROR OF OVERSIGHT:
All human beings are born with the Spirit of God within them. Babies are not born in sin just because the founding church fathers decided sin entered the world through sex; babies are born guilt free and pure. “…..From the mouths of babes your praise is assured…..” and “….Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven…..”
It was the church founding fathers who, with their heartfelt resentment against life, first made something unclean of sexuality: it threw filth on the origin, on the Essential fact of our life. And wrote the story of Genesis to support their narrative.
So please grow up and stop the guilt tripping the world and the children about being failures because of religion’s presumptive guilt trip that sexuality is the original sin.
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December 17, 2018 at 4:07 pm
If I may say so, you sound like you believe those things quite religiously. Of course anyone is free to pontificate, but what if God did communicate something to us in space and time? I think many people would have too many preconceptions that God’s message would have to satisfy before they would believe it.
By the way, the idea that babies are born into sin because they were procreated by sexual union is totally absent from the Pre-Nicene church writers. This idea came into being around the time of Augustine of Hippo (around 380 A.D.), so it is not accurate to ascribe this to “founding church fathers”. I would advise you to check the facts before dogmatically stating things as true when in fact they are not.
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December 17, 2018 at 5:40 pm
Steve:
Who is born with preconceptions about God? Nobody.
We shouldn’t have to “believe” in a God; we should be able to know God don’t you think?
What is an Axiom?
A self-evident and necessary truth, or a proposition whose truth is so evident at first sight that no reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer.
Religious beliefs are pregnant with assumptions:
1st. If there was a God it would be self evident,
2nd. Religions would not have to proselytize; and,
3rd. There would not be a fractured human race, each faction promoting their God Brand and Messenger by making extravagant claims of myths, magic and miracles seeking converts to convince.
I am talking about the early founding church fathers of the Old Testament. Judaism wrote the story of Genesis to describe how sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve because of sexuality and thereby every baby born since was born in the state of original sin. The guilt trip, with which to lord it over the masses by shoving sexual sin down their throats from birth.
Original sin, also called ancestral sin, is a Christian belief of the state of sin in which humanity exists since the fall of man, stemming from Adam and Eve’s rebellion in Eden, namely the sin of disobedience in consuming the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words participating in the sexual act for which humanity and all living creatures were designed. However divine messengers, gods and deities were born of virgins bypassing the natural means of procreation: “…..taken painlessly from the side of the mother…..” as Buddha. Or Jesus born of a virgin without knowing a man.
That original sin is a sexual sin there is little doubt and religion has been bent on making it known in their continuous attempt to control sexuality throughout the history of mankind. One can still see the final remnants of sexual control in places in the middle east where half the population is forced to cover the natural design of their humanity by wearing tarpaulin tents.
Western countries only began crawling out from under the religious sexual dress code rock in the last 100 years of the 20th century.
Until at least the 18th century, the wearing of a hair covering, both in the public and while attending church, was regarded as customary for Christian women in Mediterranean, European, Middle Eastern, and African cultures. Women who did not wear hair coverings were interpreted to be “a prostitute or adulteress”. In Europe, law stipulated that married women who uncovered their head in public was evidence of her infidelity.
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January 1, 2019 at 7:11 pm
The trouble with self-evident axioms of people, is that sometimes they can be wrong.
I believe God has in fact left “evidence” about Himself, but He deliberately did not leave “proof”. It would be harder to have the free-will to choose against God, if God made it unarguable to deny His existence.
Should God’s people share with others? Yes, if God said to, and no if God said not to. God is the boss, and He gets to decide. We only decide if we want to obey Him or not.
The “One True God” is not the only game in town (so to speak). You also have Satan and his fellow demons trying to so counterfeits. They sow multiple counterfeits, because they don’t care which one you believe, as long as you don’t believe the real one. Again, we cannot know this by “axiom” but because God has revealed this to us.
Pardon me, but you seem rather hung up on sexuality. The forbidden fruit was something they ate, not sexuality. The fist that I know of who claimed it was all a forbidden sexual relationship were Gnostics, not real Christians. In contrast to that, God COMMANDED that they replenish the earth.
You write “That original sin is sexual sin there is little doubt…”. Actually that is patently untrue, a false axiom? Genesis and the Old Testament, I remind you, were written by Hebrews, not Christians. Do Jews teach that? No! Did early Christians teach that? No, they taught that sexual relations in marriage was fine. Did many Medieval Christians teach that, starting around 400 A.D.? – Even then no, they did not teach the fruit was sexual sin. But unfortunately they did teach (what I would call) an unbiblical view of sex.
On a lighter note, if you are so convinced that the Bible is so dead-set against sex being bad and evil, perhaps you need to read the Song of Solomon 10 or 20 times.
But seriously, the BIble does forbid sex outside of heterosexual marriage, but it delights in families (i.e. children and sex too) within marriage.
Psalm 113:9 “He [God] settles the barren woman in her home as a HAPPY MOTHER OF CHILDREN. Praise the Lord.” (NIV, caps added)
Praise the Lord indeed!
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January 1, 2019 at 7:46 pm
Sorry, there is no such thing as God’s people. Where did you get the idea that there are God’s people and other people that are not God’s people?
Curious to see that sex outside of heterosex marriage is forbidden but sex outside other type marriages are okay.
Self evident axioms are NEVER wrong, certainly not just because you say so.
Satan and his fellow demons? Please give me a break from your fantasy indoctrination about made up caricatures from several thousand years ago.
The bible forbids sex period. What you mean by “outside marriage” is outside of the Clergy /Church’s idea of what marriage is according to those who are supposed to practice celibacy. Marriage is when the Church says it is okay iof you get married their way. The bible says something different; the bible says that marriage is the “sexual act” when a man leaves his mother and clings to his wife in sexual union.
You can say that the garden original sin was not sex but that is hiding your head in the sand. Sex has always been the original sin in religious circles.
It is amazing how old fashion and out of date with reality, church believers are. It shows the power of indoctrination over and over unto every generation when kids are told what their parents believe and kids are ostracized if they believe or practice things like leaving your mother and clinging to your wife.
Dod you not read about marriage according to Jesus which is the same as what I propose.
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19:4-6
That is marriage, not a piece of paper with the priest’s signature on it giving you permission to have sexual relations with your spouse. Which believers seem to think it is as long as it is sanctioned by the church or the Pastor or the Priest or the Prophet, the Preacher, the Pope or any other number of sexual, holier than thou Perverts, then it’s okay.
But if you do it God’s way, the Natural way without religious oversight and cling to each other and you have a child from that relationship, the Church will dub your child a bastard and ostracize you and the child into a black abyss of religious insanity.
Tell me what is Original Sin if not related to sexuality? Any suggestions to explain otherwise?
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January 1, 2019 at 7:54 pm
What’s the difference between evidence and proof? Nothing!
Evidence is proof and proof is rendered by evidence so I don’t know why you think you can separate evidence from the proof it proves or the proof that evidences confirms. Evidence is proof and proof demands evidence. They are not separate and exclusive to each other.
What school did you learn that from?, The religious school of religious insanity is the only school that can contradict everything it says and says anything it wants because religion is not a knowledge based business it is based purely on speculative imagination. That’s why it called BELIEF…without knowledge!
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January 21, 2019 at 8:59 pm
Steve, I downloaded your Excel document and have looked through it. It looks extremely helpful, although I do have some questions about how to interpret some of the data. Perhaps you could walk me through it. If you would be willing to do so, email me at theosophicalruminations [at] gmail.com. Thanks!
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December 17, 2019 at 3:17 pm
Evidence is material that could suggest a conclusion but does not demonstrate it. Proof is material that fully demonstrates a conclusion and suggests that the case is closed. This may be helpful for the uneducated who believe they are the same thing:
https://oregonstate.edu/instruction/bb317/scientifictheories.html
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