There are eastern bibles that are written in Syriac. The New testament of the Peshitta (Syriac bible) was standard in the middle east by the 5th century and did not include many disputed books, the antilegomena, aswell as all the catholic epistles and the book of revelation(to which sadly alot of tin foil hat evangelicals are orgasmic about).
Then there is the codex sinaiticus, the oldest bible, in greek which includes several more books in the OT as well as an extra epistle and the Shepherd of hermas.
My question is, how is it possible that we “know” more now about which verses are canon than the people who lived a few years after the fact.
I do believe in the virgin birth. I do believe in the basic tenets of Christianity, but those in my opinion are logical and are actions I know not to take morally, not because im afraid of going to hell. In the same way im not sure that Noah lived to be 950 years old, or his son Shem to be 900ish. Those just sound ridiculous to me, and in my opinion, along with many stories in the old and new testament, are meant to be taken allegorically and not literally.
ego and pride. To reject the beliefs of the Early Christians based on one's interpretation in the year 2011 is egotistical, to say the least.
Noah lived to be 950... — well, compare this to mythologies from Iran or India and you have people living for hundreds of years. Is it possible that climate change affected the length of a person’s life? Climate change post flood?