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To: Dog Gone
I don't believe that because of the contradictions and misstatements.

There are none.

Given that the only written words that God gave us are on the Ten Commandments which have never been found, everything else has gone through a human filter.

Here's an answer I have laying around:

THE OLD TESTAMENT

There are only a few hundred manuscripts that we have for the Old Testament. The Old Testament track record of being duplicated by hand-written means is stunning when one is aware of the rigid laws governing the transcribing of the Scriptures. Samuel Davidson in the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament lists regimens that the Talmudists (A.D. 100-500) observed. Here follows a sampling:

1. An authentic copy must be the exemplar, from which the transcriber ought not in the least deviate
2. No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory
3. Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene
4. Between every book, three lines
5. The copyist must sit in full Jewish dress
6. Wash his whole body
7. Not begin to write the name of God with a pen newly dipped in ink

Between the seventh and tenth centuries B.C.; Jewish scholars called Masoretes gathered primarily in Tiberias and developed an intricate system for transcribing the Old Testament, which has resulted in the standard Hebrew text used today. Below are a few of their meticulous rules for transcription:

1. Counted the number of times each letter in the alphabet occurs in each book
2. Numbered the verses, words, and letters of every book and calculate the middle letter of each
3. Pointed out the middle letter of the Pentateuch and the whole Hebrew Bible (It should be noted that these calculations were made and committed to memory by mnemonics and always checked against the original text.)

Is it any wonder then that the Old Testament is almost a carbon copy of that which was originally penned? The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 completely solidified the question of whether the scrolls had been precisely transmitted since the initial completion of the Old Testament in 400 B.C. The argument that persisted prior to this great discovery was this:

Since the oldest manuscript that we have dates around A.D. 900, how do we know that the Old Testament was accurately transmitted since the time of Christ in A.D. 32? The Dead Sea Scrolls answered that question forever. The date of the writing of the different scrolls dates as early as 200 B.C. The Book of Isaiah, for example, is dated by paleographers around 125 B.C. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed the unprecedented accurate transmission of a document of antiquity over a period of 1000 years.

Song of Solomon is interesting reading, but it's hard to imagine God writing it. How long has it been since your church focused on it?

God wrote it. It's His Word. I have no problem with that.

18 posted on 06/16/2006 7:30:58 PM PDT by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings...Modesty hides my thighs in her wings...)
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To: Skooz
There are none.

There are many. I went to private religious operated schools from grade 1 through college. It's not like I haven't had thousands of hours of instruction in the Bible.

I believe its overall theme, but it contradicts itself numerous times.

The Bible is work of inspired men, but fallible men. If God wanted to shoot us a copy of His actual manual, I don't think that would be a problem for him.

He hasn't done that.

24 posted on 06/16/2006 7:54:14 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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