A Confusing Message of Salvation?

[Brad Murphy]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Of course their method of copying was a little more precise than "the telephone game." In fact, comparing some older manuscript to later ones shows not a significant amount of variance.

But you have to admit, it would be helpful to have an original to compare to...

[Jason B]

Originally Posted by Chateau d'If

I believe we make many mistakes by reading the Bible as one book written to one particular group of people. It's not as if it was written with a Western mindset, and specifically for Western culture.

The truth is, the Bible we know took centuries to complete. It was written to various peoples who faced very specific theological and personal issues.

Even in the New Testament, the four synoptic gospels were written to different groups of people, with each writer emphasizing things specific to the intended audience.

In the same way, I am not so sure we can formulate a "plan" of salvation by piecing together different scriptures, written by different apostles, in different geographical locales, in different time periods.

Understand, for any salvation formula to be for all mankind it would need to be understood by all of those cultures, in all of those locales, over all of the New Testament generations. It would need to be presented with the same emphasis to all of these peoples.

It is assumed among Apostolics that this plan is found in Acts 2:38. I am no longer so sure. Where, in any other portion of the New Testament, is this formula found?

There are many times, even in the Book of Acts, where people received the gospel, but were never told to be baptized or receive the Holy Ghost. In fact, there is no mention of anyone ever being commanded receive the Holy Ghost. It is always referred to as a gift, promise or endowment.

Think about it.

In Acts 3:19, after the lame man is healed, Peter is preaching to an entirely different audience, and says, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."

Someone's soul is on the line, and instead of Peter repeating the "formula" of Acts 2:38, he tells them to repent? Where's the rest of the formula? It's not as if they had ever heard the formula before. Why did Peter exclude the other two steps?

It's not confusing, anyone can have faith in God and repent of their sins. Justification by faith is simple.

Its when Zen Apostolicism gets curning that things get confusing. One must make sure they are theologically correct in a specific (not general) sense, they must have the correct words pronounced over them at water baptism, and they must speak in tonuges. To say nothing of never cutting hair for women, and shaving for men. I could go on and on--yeah, I can see how that would be "confusing".

[Jason B]

Originally Posted by Brad Murphy

No surprise, but I agree with your thoughts here. that is one of the things that led to my current "crisis of faith"... take what you said above, and compound it by each of the various books being copied over and over again, each time creating more potential error (think of the telephone game), and then on top of that, interpreting it into other languages and trying to retain the exact same meaning. These letters were written by the authors, and were written to a specific audience, then 300 years later (or thereabouts) a group of men (Catholics) chose which copies of which texts should appear in the canon of the Bible based on what suited their purposes and views.... and these men didn't even have the Holy Ghost (at least as far as any of us know)...

and that's not even counting the millions of people doomed to spend eternity in hell just because the Bible wasn't translated to their language yet (especially before the 1600s or so).

Brad, I think this is a poor argument that has been unproven over and over again. First off we have over 5,700 Greek NT manuscripts which agree in every significant point, there is amazing consistency, and the Old Testament is even more accurate. Secondly, even though the Bible has been translated into so many languages, we still have the ability to read and speak the original languages, so its not exactly like the telephone game, since we are easily able to go back to the source, and it is fairly common knowledge. Not everyone speaks Greek or Hebrew, but its not as if no one does.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Jason Badejo

Brad, I think this is a poor argument that has been unproven over and over again. First off we have over 5,700 Greek NT manuscripts which agree in every significant point, there is amazing consistency, and the Old Testament is even more accurate. Secondly, even though the Bible has been translated into so many languages, we still have the ability to read and speak the original languages, so its not exactly like the telephone game, since we are easily able to go back to the source, and it is fairly common knowledge. Not everyone speaks Greek or Hebrew, but its not as if no one does.

It's not quite that simple... Old English is nothing like modern English. I imagine ancient greek and hebrew would have similar problems.

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by jfrog

It's not quite that simple... Old English is nothing like modern English. I imagine ancient greek and hebrew would have similar problems.

Please clarify.

I don't think Jason is saying interpretation is simple, but the idea of scriptures keeping their integrity throughout the centuries is more easily to prove from a literary standpoint.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Please clarify.

I don't think Jason is saying interpretation is simple, but the idea of scriptures keeping their integrity throughout the centuries is more easily to prove from a literary standpoint.

My comment was only meant to apply to him saying we still read and speak the original languages. It's not really that simple and all you have to do is look at Old English to realize this.

[Jason B]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Please clarify.

I don't think Jason is saying interpretation is simple, but the idea of scriptures keeping their integrity throughout the centuries is more easily to prove from a literary standpoint.

Correct.

[UnTraditional]

Can I place a thought here on faith? If God is sovereign, and He has unlimited power and authority, would it not best be believed that He is able to preserve His truths?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Just the opposite, it was written with an Eastern mindset set about 0-100 AD, to an Eastern audience. That's a lot of "noise" in the middle for the interpreter to consider.

Id say it was written by those from a Hebrew background to those who are from both an Eastern and Western background

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Chateau d'If

We cannot assume they somehow knew the other two steps were necessary. There was no way they could have known. Yet Peter feels no need to mention them. Why?

Not sure what you mean by other 2 steps but don't forget that churches were started by Apostles.

The Apostles did not need the book of Acts to know what to preach to them

The Apostles remained in contact with these churches either direction or by sending letters or ambassadors