After all, the Sacred Scriptures spent a thousand years in the hands of the Vatican (half of that if you count the Eastern Orthodox churches) . How do we know that the cabal didn't alter, add or supress anything important on them in all those years, that's also not counting the other supposedly reformed editions that were made by people with ties to Freemasonry and the City of London ?
I might also be in dire need of some time out of the news and the digging. Feel free to call me out if that's the case.
"We can be 100% confident that the versions of the Bible we possess today are, indeed, what the original authors wrote down."
We can not be 100% confident about anything today and why, just because something was written down in antiquity does that make it unassailable truth that came straight from God's lips to these peeps stenopads?
Here is your leap of faith and that is exactly what it is. You choose to believe this is the case but you can not point at these text and establish a chain of custody to God's lips.
It is an article of faith to believe these translations dripped like honey straight from God's mouth into the ears of these protagonists.
It is an article of faith to pretend to know that the very forces that keep us ignorant today were not stymieing the human spark in Biblical times.
To pretend all this is knowable and science is to deceive yourself.
Any language in existence is a set of pigeon holes, words with finite meanings, that are interpreted differently even by contemporary people with agreed upon definitions.
To me the fallacy is that an ancient static, social and moral code can explain or even try to vaguely encapsulate a dynamic, infinite universe.
The Bible paints a limited, anthropomorphic and pedestrian look at the infinite and those who claim to 100% know the chain of custody of this screed all the way to God's mouth are deluding themselves.
You're entire response misses the point.
The authenticity/reliability of the NT documents (which I have 100% shown to be light years above any other book from early antiquity) is not an argument for whether or not the content in the Bible is true. All the information I provided does is prove that we can ascertain with a very high level of certainty (99.8%) that what we have in our hands today IS what the original authors wrote down - whether you believe that message came from God or not, or is true or not.
Do you see the nuance?
If you don't see the nuance, then maybe you should ask some clarifying questions to make sure you understand what is being said, before spouting off at the lip trying to wax eloquent.
By the way, your attempt at casting doubt on the ability of language to communicate meaning to another is a self refuting attempt. You say here:
You either believe the words you are using have some sort of common understanding and can communicate the intent of what you are trying to say to me, in which case your argument fails, or, what you are saying about the nature of language is true and no one can truly understand what it is you're trying to say because "words can be interpreted differently."
You can't have it both ways.
The facts that I have presented (and others) above in the previous comments show, without a doubt, that there is no other book from early antiquity that can claim the level of reliability/trustworthiness that the NT can claim.
Hands down.
I see your point and did not intuitively pick up that you were advocating for Christianity only to the point that someone wrote it down once.
That does not seem like a very profound statement. It carries somewhat less impact that God's words but I am certainly feeling you.
As to the words, "You either believe the words you are using have some sort of common understanding and can communicate...."
Dude, even the color "Red" does not have common meaning to someone who is color blind and we are talking about highly abstract concepts here. you were just posting about the limits of human understanding we are not talking about a chair or a table.
The word "God". It means something completely different to you than it does for me. In fact everyone in the world has some abstract notion of God that differs from everyone else. This is completely self evident.
Well, establishing the reliability of the New Testament is pretty profound in that we can be sure that the Bible we have in our hands today is, indeed, what the original authors wrote down. We can argue about whether what they wrote down is true or not, but we can't say that the Bible has been changed so much that it's impossible to determine what it originally said.
The only way you can observe that the word "God" means something different to you than it does to me proves that words can be understood properly, otherwise you wouldn't be able to conclude that our meanings are different!
Just because people disagree on definitions does not mean communication is impossible.
"Just because people disagree on definitions does not mean communication is impossible."
The definition of God not a table cloth.
You really need to take a heroic dose of LSD and then try and describe the experience to me, maybe then the concept that words are a crap form of communication would have more weight.
Why don't the Zen masters just tell you what the meaning of life is?
Communicating by words is like Neaderthal's monosyllabic grunts in the universal scheme of communications.
We are fucking peasant/prisoners on a backward shithole and don't know the first thing about how to deport ourselves in this universe.
In reality vast conceptual edifices can be instantly grokked without a word said and no translation issues. This is how God would talk to you.