The New Testament Selection Committee.

The discrepancies and contradictions in the New Testament are renown, I have covered a few myself so I won't cover them here.

 So how did  the New Testament , a book that is believed by devote Christians  to be unimpugnable get so poorly slammed and glued together in the way it has come down to us? Keeping in mind that the gospel writers impugn each other?

   Given these multiple discrepancies and contradictions the four gospels can only be accepted as highly questionable and in no way as definitive.

 If they are the "words of god" they have been glossed, edited, revised, liberally censored and rewritten by human hand, just as many 21st century believers on this forum often attempt to do.

   It has to be seriously remembered that that the Bible- Old and New Testaments are simply a collection of works and arbitrary ones at that. The bible could have included many more works than it has in the state it has come down to us. And it also has to be remembered that many of these missing works are considered to have been ' lost' , but it is more the case they were deliberately excluded and some destroyed.

 It was  in A.D. 367 that the Bishop  of Alexandria was said to have compiled a list of works that were to be included in the New Testament. This list was then given formal consent by the Church Council of Hippo in 393 and was then again by the Council of Carthage 5 years later. It was at these councils a selection was agreed on. Certain works made it in while others didn't leavening us with what we now have what we today call the NT while other works were ignored or  as mentioned, simply destroyed.

  It has to be asked , how could such a selection process possibly be regarded as definitive let alone "divinely inspired"? 

 Who was to say and by what authority did a bunch of Pastors, Priests and other members of the clergy infallibly decide that only certain books " belonged" in the bible while others did not?

 

 I do hope that someone here being  more qualified than myself can answer these question considering they have had almost 2000 years to iron then out. 

Christians are famous for lying.

Hitler also claimed he was divinely inspired.

i think it's misguided to think we should base so much life and death and existential issues on what the bible says. as a christian, i think we should generally defer to it, but we should be careful. for example, st paul was writing to christian communities in the early church, to spread the faith... but to think he intended for his writings to be considered the word of God, is a stretch. 

What do you mean- "defer to it"?

Everyone tells lies. Including Jesus and St Paul admits to being a four faced liar.

I think he meant "differ".

As to the topic, I couldn't agree more. Some investigations state that Jesus believed in reincarnation, and some of the ruled-out books in the new testament talked about it.

But I'm more interested in the old testament which is full of blatant incoherences. I'm going to open a thread about it since I've just come to watch an interview with the journalist and UFO investigator JJ Benitez who has published his new book "Las guerras de Yavé" (Yahve's wars). It's fucking interesting.

Well, the Old Testamant is nothing more that a book of war and conquest. Of wars fought by men on the behalf of so called "god/s".  It only focuses in on the history one bloodline.

Sounds interesting. I have looked at the possible connections quite a lot over the years. I have to admit, there are some weird and wonderful stories in that old dusty book. Ezekiel and his flying machine still has me captivated. The many references to " being taken up in a cloud, ascending on a cloud, descending on a cloud, " and Jacobs ladder, Every time I read such biblical references to gods coming and going on clouds of fire I cannot get images such as  this out of my mind:

I have read quite a lot on the  Mesopotamian Annunaki lords- referred to as the Anak in the OT.

I look forward with great interest to your thread, IlDiavolo.