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The Sydney Atheists December Meetup

Dec 2008 14

Sun 6:30 PM

Location: This location is shown only to members

Estimated attendance: 28 people attended.
5.003
Who organized?
Ansgar and Tynan

We will meet from 6:30pm at the Royal Albert Hotel, Surry Hills.

In the topical hour of the evening Russell will talk on the historicity of the bible.

What is the 'biblical text'?

I will give a thumb-nail sketch of the actual evidence for the historical transmission of the biblical text, starting with the Dead Sea Scrolls and moving through to the first millennium CE copies
and translations that essentially reflect what we find on modern
bookshelves. How has the unchangeable word of god changed over time, and
what does this say about the myth of a 'biblical canon'?.

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Talk about this Meetup

Posted Dec 15, 2008 10:35 PM

Ansgar

Organizer

During the meetup it was discussed how findings on historicity would affect the faith of Christians. Seems like a topic for the message board. This is just a field for comments.
Posted Dec 15, 2008 5:28 PM

Former Member

Nathan, You've conflated two separate issues. Textual purity is one, the ethical/non-ethical aspect is another. You weren't following the argument but injected your own view about an entirely different point. It's similar to my discussing the degree to which rugby's code has changed over the years and suddenly Joe enters the debate and says that it's irrelevant because rugby is a dangerous game. BTW, people DO use The Republic, Gitas, Koran, Stoic texts etc to base their life's actions.
Posted Dec 14, 2008 10:53 PM

Nathan Dunn

Assistant Organizer

Thats not the point Marc, nobody is taking the iliad as the basis for their life choices, nobody is justifying vilification and murder on the premise that MacBeth is the literal word of god. If you believe the bible is the literal word of god, yet history shows it's been edited countless times, you become a puppet to the wishes of scribes who are long dead. Absolving oneself of responsibility for your own actions because some old book says so is the worst form of evil.
Pre-Meetup comments below
Posted Dec 14, 2008 3:41 AM

Former Member

How has science changed over the same period of time?
Posted Dec 13, 2008 7:04 PM

Former Member

It's horses for courses isn't? Rather than taking the Bible in isolation, shouldn't we be comparing other texts from the time and see what their transmission purity is like? Also, even if the Bible's textual purity is not 100%, the things that have changed, do they affect any important Christian doctrine?