If you don't trust translations, learn Hebrew. Or use many tools, online, proprietary, and open source, to automate the equivalent of a Hebrew Bible Dictionary. I like biblehub.com for an online version (annoying popup ads, but gotta pay for it somehow). I also use the open source Sword project for offline tools, including Xiphos (Greek for sword) gui.

There are almost no differences between texts for Old Testament books accepted in the Jewish and Protestant canon. That is one criterion for the canon. (Additional candidates, like Enoch, have widely varying texts - I like the Ethiopic text for Enoch.) Scribes used a checksum method when copying a scroll - each line has a checksum. Unfortunately, they did not think of checksumming the checksums for a group of lines. So, e.g. Jeremiah 27:1 seems to be a dup of Jeremiah 26:1. Context (e.g. 28:1) makes it clear that 27:1 is the dup.

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“There are almost no differences between the Jewish and Protestant canon.” Just WOW 🤩 I’m amazed that you can say that with such authority. Do you not realize I’m speaking about church leaders who expound such differences to their followers? How many various sects of Christianity exist? Even they can’t all agree on everything. But you want to say skip all that & go directly to Hebrew. Cool.

I’ve studied the Bible multiple times in various translations etc.

The point is why should one choose to follow any religion above another? How much longer will humankind continue killing one another in the name of some God?

You speak about quarks and associate quantum physics with something that was written … when? Oh wait … we are talking universally. By your words our Earth is but 4.5 days old… is that right?

The theory of the idea that the canons align doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong. But how many have been taught it is wrong and have died in holy wars over it? Can we get to a point where we stop killing humans who don’t agree?

Can you hear where I’m coming from?

nah. we gonna kill them probably

No you won’t. If humanity is intelligent they would go after the 1% and demand they pay their fair share.

Quit that game of killing those you have more in common with than not. 🤣

I agree. Im about the pitchfork life. But ppl crave comfort til the grave unless they are physically hungry. then they revolt. Maybe when the shortages start.

Maybe. Most will stay strapped to their chains of computer generated pixelated dopamine hits…

I used to joke “you gotta find me first” level of paranoia. Nope: I’m done hiding- at the IDGAF now 🤣

The gig is up. empire is crumbling while humanity evolving. Evolution spiritually and in capability is the hope. But we could just turn into the scourge of the milky way. will see i guess. Borg or the Q from here

Love is …

💜

all we got

Indeed. Hugs.

No! I got you. 🫂💜🥰

... the fulfilling of the law.

Gödel threw the world of mathematics into turmoil with his Incompleteness Theorem. He proved that there was no possible algorithm, even in princple, to iterate over the (infinite) set of true theorems. Legalistic religious systems suffer from a similar defect. No finite set of rules can codify righteous behavior in every circumstance. There will always be new situations not covered by the rules. The Talmudic approach was to extend a set of auxiliary rules to cover these situations. Hmm, the Law of Moses says "do not boil the kid in his mother's milk". What about cheese burgers? The Law says, "do not light a fire on the Sabbath". Can you drive your car to synagogue? Can you push a button that completes or interrupts an electrical circuit?

But the Law is a school teacher. It shows you your own corruption, but does not provide the power to do what is right, or even prescribe the right thing to do in every possible situation. Thus both Moses and Jesus summarize the law as "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." And Jesus adds, and the second is like unto it, "Love your neighbor as yourself." These are not detailed prescriptions. They cannot be followed consistently by hearts tainted by sin.

The arguments are not over the canon (mostly, Orthodox have 88 books, Catholic have 72, Protestant 66, Jewish have OT only - progressively tighter criteria for canonicity). As R.C. Sproul put it, "we have a fallible canon of infallible books". While Catholics/Orthodox complain about Protestants "throwing out" books (actually, they are read in church, used in Bible study, but just not regarded as canon), I think it is a good idea to start with the subset agreed on by absolutely everyone. Note that Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox all agree on the New Testament canon - although Luther considered ditching e.g. James ("an epistle of straw!") because the content didn't fit neatly with his preaching.

Many of the arguments are not even real arguments - but a failure to listen to the other side. For instance, the Protestant slogan "sola fide" (faith alone) is entirely acceptable to Catholic/Orthodox if modified to "sola fide formata". The issue is that "faith" or "belief" is used in two senses in the NT canon. Fide informis (intellectual assent) vs Fide formata (action based on faith). In fact, the phrase "sola fide", or "faith alone" in English only appears one place in the NT, in James, where he says, "therefore a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone". But there James is talking about fide informis. As he says shortly before, "You believe that this is one God? The demons also believe and tremble." One way of qualifying in English is "believing that" vs "believing in".

Charles Blondin was a famous French acrobat known for walking a tight rope across dangerous terrain. On his US tour, he walked across Niagra Falls. At each performance, he would ask the crowd, "Do you believe I can walk to the other side and back on that tightrope?" "Yes!" the crowd would reply. And after working the excitement to a satisfactory pitch, he would proceed to do exactly that, often adding additional stunts en route.

One time, he asked the crowd, "Do you believe I can carry a man on my back to the other side and back on that tightrope?" "Yes!" the crowed screamed, excitement building as usual. "I need one brave soul to volunteer for the trip!" Crickets. Finally, his business manager volunteered, and the feat was performed as promised. The crowd believed THAT he could do it. The business manager believed IN the ability of Charles to do so.

The wars between Catholic and Protestant were mostly over the Authority of the Pope - who had become in effect Emperor of the World during the wars to push back the Moslem conquest of Europe ("Crusades"). The German princes seized on Luther as a religious leader to gain the support of the people to rebel against the Pope - this was more of a political than a theological issue.

Other issues resulting in localized violence was persecution of the Anabaptist sects. These did not believe in infant baptism, and their members were rebaptized. This was seen by mainstream churches as claiming their baptisms were invalid (kinda true). Heresy (perceived or real) often gained a death penalty. Sadly, even this was not a deep disagreement. Catholics first dealt with the death of martyrs under Roman persecution before baptism by proclaiming it a "baptism of blood". Then what about still born babies, or infants who died before baptism. If the parents intended to baptize the child, this was called a "baptism of desire". Anabaptist believers intended to baptize their children, and did so when the child could communicate their desire to do so. This is in effect a "baptism of desire".

Satoshi expostulated, "Do you not realize I’m speaking about church leaders who expound such differences to their followers?"

At high enough temperatures, distinctions in physics disappear. Electrons, protons, neutrons, etc all become quarks. Einstein showed that E = mc², but matter and energy become not only equivalent, but indistinguishable and inseperable at temperatures like the early universe.

Similarly, with severe enough persecution, distinctions between Christian groups disappear. In a prison camp, rules about communion between Catholic/Protestant are suspended. My high school chemistry teacher had a poster, "In the event of nuclear attack, all rules against praying in school are temporarily suspended." It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. (I haven't served, myself.)

BTW, the canon is which books are authentic. "Texts" refers to different manuscripts. OT manuscripts are very consistent. NT manuscripts all have errors (not typos, but "scribals"?). But there are thousands of them, so you can make a tree out of all the versions, and get the original reading with only a few passages in question (none very important).