Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:51:21 -0700 (PDT), Tiny Bulcher
<alycidon9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 21, 10:04 am, The Last Conformist <andre...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 21, 2:03 am, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:26:15 -0700 (PDT), The Last Conformist

<andre...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 20, 11:39 pm, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:45:51 +0100, "Tiny Bulcher"

<alycid...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
þus cwæð r norman:
On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:37:45 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
John Wilkins <j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip about missing books of the Bible>

Of course, the missing books are inerrantly missing.

OK, I'll bite.  How do you know anything is missing?

Same way you know anything is missing. Somebody once said it was there
(all John's references are places where Scripture is referencing other
Scripture) ,,, and now it's not.

In the case of the Apocrypha, it's even easier. Crack open the original
KJV, and they're all there, Tobit and Maccabees and the others. Crack
open a modern edition, and blow me, they're gorn. And a fundie KJV
worshipper doesn't even know they've gorn.

No, it was not really a serious question.  But it can be made into
one.  Your argument doesn't  hold much water.  The reason they are no
longer in the King James Version is because they don't _belong_ in the
"real" Bible, they were inadvertently included in an erroneous
edition.  And, yes, there are references to all sorts of things in the
official Bible but not everything referred to is necessarily biblical
and belongs in the canon.

The question is:  are these texts truly no longer extant, that is,
really missing or are they simply excluded by the dictates (arbitrary
or inspired) or Jerome and Athanasius and that whole crowd?

They're gone, lost, non-extant, known only from mentions in other
books. Plenty of lots of ancient books are, so your apparent
skepticism strikes me as a bit odd.

The Apocrypha are not lost, which is the subject of your second
paragraph.  As to John's list, the subject of your first paragraph,

Are you confusing me with Tiny Bulcher?

A ghastly fate. Wouldn't wish it on a dog.

Prior to this post, I've
posted exactly one paragraph in this conversation (which refers to the
works on John's list).

I
should have asked a second question which was only implicit in my
post:  What evidence is there that the works which were cited in the
canonical texts but which now do not exist were themselves worthy of
inclusion in the canon?

I don't think there's any evidence that *any* books belong to the
canon. Did you mean to ask whether they were ever considered canonical
by anyone? I do not know.

The 'missing' books are not recorded as part of Tanakh, but it is a
moot question as what was considered of divine authority (other than
Torah) before the codification of Tanakh.

The Apocrypha, of course, although not part of Tanakh, have been, and
still are according to some, considered canonical.

That is, why do we say they are missing books
_of_the_Bible_ rather than merely missing supporting source material
not necessarily divinely inspired used by some Biblical characters as
documentation for what they proclaimed.

John will have to tell you why he so categorized them himself, but I'm
fairly certain that "divine inspiration" or the lack thereof doesn't
figure.

Just a few points to end the silliness.

First, I did confuse Last with Tony. My deepest sympathies to one of
you and let the other of you rejoice at the confusion. You figure out
which is which.

Second, as I already said, I was originally trying to make a lame joke
about the "how do you know they are missing" thing. But, as I also
said, there are other issues. There truly are some works missing but
others are merely "decertified" while others (the so-called Gnostic
gospels, for instance) were considered for the cut but never made it.
There are different religions, sects, cults that adopt some books but
reject others. Jews, of course, don't accept the badly named "New"
Testament and Jews plus Christians reject the Koran and Mormons and
Christian Scientists have their own things. So the serious point that
I was trying to illustrate by my own weird back-handed and negative
and clumsy way is that there is no designated "word of God" but merely
a mish-mash of writings put down by humans and transcribed and
translated (often erroneously) by other humans until somebody with
authority stood up and said "This is The Bible" (and others with
authority stood up and said "No, THIS is The Bible" and they waged
wars about it and here we are.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?
    ... (all John's references are places where Scripture is referencing ... really missing or are they simply excluded by the dictates ... Plenty of lots of ancient books are, ... I don't think there's any evidence that *any* books belong to the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?
    ... (all John's references are places where Scripture is referencing other ... Scripture),,, and now it's not. ... KJV, and they're all there, Tobit and Maccabees and the others. ... Plenty of lots of ancient books are, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?
    ... <snip about missing books of the Bible> ... Scripture),,, and now it's not. ... KJV, and they're all there, Tobit and Maccabees and the others. ... And, yes, there are references to all sorts of things in the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?
    ... (all John's references are places where Scripture is referencing other ... and belongs in the canon. ... really missing or are they simply excluded by the dictates (arbitrary ... John's books are, so far as I can tell, genuinely missing and gorn ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How often to things crawl out of the sea?
    ... Scripture),,, and now it's not. ... And, yes, there are references to all sorts of things in the ... really missing or are they simply excluded by the dictates (arbitrary ... John's books are, so far as I can tell, genuinely missing and gorn ...
    (talk.origins)