written off of stories that are so far removed from original fact
Almost ALL of the New Testament was codified before 70AD (the destruction of the Temple by the Romans).
That is roughly 40 years after Christ walked the earth. The book of Luke was written before that. 1 Corinthians contains a portion of text that dates to within 9 years of Christs death. I challenge ANYONE to find an ancient book from early antiquity that can compare to both the number of manuscripts the Bible possesses and the extremely short time gap in between our first copies and the original autographs (Original writing). There are none.
Homers Iliad? Written 500+ years after Homer lived. All of Aristotle and Plato's writings that you studied in College are taken from texts (copies) that post date the lives of those men by over 1000 years. Yet, no one doubts the words we read in those books are really Aristotle's words or Plato's words?? Why is that? ONLY when it comes to the Bible do we have this hyper skepticism regarding it's authenticity. Very interesting indeed.....
This is often a point I make as well. If we were to go by the "skeptic's" standards, we would have to claim that the entirety of ancient history was invented in the middle ages.
Almost ALL of the New Testament was codified before 70AD (the destruction of the Temple by the Romans).
That is roughly 40 years after Christ walked the earth. The book of Luke was written before that. 1 Corinthians contains a portion of text that dates to within 9 years of Christs death. I challenge ANYONE to find an ancient book from early antiquity that can compare to both the number of manuscripts the Bible possesses and the extremely short time gap in between our first copies and the original autographs (Original writing). There are none.
Homers Iliad? Written 500+ years after Homer lived. All of Aristotle and Plato's writings that you studied in College are taken from texts (copies) that post date the lives of those men by over 1000 years. Yet, no one doubts the words we read in those books are really Aristotle's words or Plato's words?? Why is that? ONLY when it comes to the Bible do we have this hyper skepticism regarding it's authenticity. Very interesting indeed.....
This is often a point I make as well. If we were to go by the "skeptic's" standards, we would have to claim that the entirety of ancient history was invented in the middle ages.