Since the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians at the great battle of Carchemish, shortly after the death of Josiah, King of Judah, technically Nebuchadnessar was the king of the Assyrians, as well as the Babylonians.

True enough, though that is a very odd way of putting it. Sort of like calling Julias Caesar the King of the Greeks, since the Romans conquered Greece.

Julius Caesar was never king of anywhere, since Rome at the time was a Republic. Likewise, the Greeks of Athens, at any rate, never had kings either, until Alexander the Great, and afterwards. He did, however, marry Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Julius Caesar's relative, Augustus Caesar, was the first Roman Emperor, and his descendants and successors remained at the head of the Roman Empire until it collapsed by about 453 AD, and then after that the Byzantine Empire until 1453 AD.

And no, it isn't odd to say that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians as well as the Babylonians. The Battle of Carchemish happened in 609 BC, and according to the linked Wikipedia article, it was Nebuchadnezzar II who defeated a combined Egyptian and Assyrian force. The Assyrians never enjoyed their own autonomy ever again as a nation, right up to modern days. As well as Biblical sources, relating the death of Josiah, there is the advantage of having several ancient sources to tell of these events.

The Old Maid wrote:

Meanwhile over in Judaism, the canon of the TaNaKHh ("Torah, Ne'vim, Ketu'vim), or Hebrew Bible, was not standardized until some time after Christianity had been established.

Waggawerewolf27 wrote:

Scholars discovered from their studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the transcribing of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Tanakh), the Torah, in particular, has been consistent and accurate from well before Christianity was established, maybe even since the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem. I once visited a Jewish synagogue where the official in charge of our group was keen to tell us of the procedures they take when an old copy of the Torah is to be replaced by a new copy. They have to ensure that nothing is changed from the old copy, ' not by a jot or a tittle').

That's not what I meant by "standardized." I was using the term from the source.

What the source's writers meant is that Judaism did not formally canonize the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) until some time after the early church (which was by then the early Catholic Church) had canonized every book that was in the Septuagint.

Judaism had kept the Septuagint as a collection for all that time, and Jesus would have grown up with that collection. But it took Judaism a few extra centuries to get around to selecting a canon out of the Septuagint collection.

After they finally did, the Protestants only accepted as canon those pre-Christian books that Judaism canonized, what with Judaism being (with God's help) the authors after all.

...

Oh, and someone upstream mentioned a fuss over "total depravity." I wonder if the person they were debating was thinking of "utter depravity," which is different.

I took a class studying early church history. We read the book of Judas and also accounts of miracles that didn't make it into the bible. One where some of the disciples command bed bugs to leave the bed and all the bed bugs march out in a single file line. There was a movement within the church to differentiate itself from gnosticism and then they also removed any accounts of miracles that only benefitted themselves. It shook me up a little at the time, how they decided what of the new testament made it into our Canon. Its interesting to look at some of the writings that didn't make it in. I think the Catholic bible has a story about Jesus as a child in Egypt bringing a bird back to life.

My mother left me with a Catholic (Douai) Bible and a copy of the Jewish Scriptures in English (Harkavy, NY, 1952). Although the Hebrew Scriptures are arranged different to the Protestant Old Testament, both are similar in their contents. The Douai Bible New Testament contains only what the Protestant KJV Bible has.

I was lucky enough to get hold of a recent program, The Bible's buried secrets, which shows what archaeologists found out about Bible events. One interesting find they had was all the pre - 586 BC idols which the prophets denounced Israel and Judah for having. Subsequent to 587 BC they didn't find any idols ever again, except what the Greeks and Romans put there.

It was a really interesting program which showed what proof archaeologists have found of how the Bible was originally compiled as well as the existence of Ancient Israel and Judah, and of the House of David.

Went through my notes from that class. That story was interesting and we did study it but it didn't make it into either the Protestant or Catholic New Testament Canon. Which, have the same books. Although apparently Martin Luther objected to the book of James, it stayed in. It was the Old Testament in which the Catholic bible has more of, if I understood correctly in class. (I am happy for this website as it is giving something to do while I recover with this cast and can't do much else )

About devotionals: I am in a small group that is studying "Outlive Your Life" by Max Lucado. Its about the book of Acts. I'd rather we went more over the book of Acts itself since the book is mostly lambasting the readers for not doing more good in the world; giving money to strangers and such. I always get such a guilt trip after each reading. I generally avoid devotionals for reasons others have stated. I prefer fiction or the Bible. I went to a religious boarding school for high school and we once for a religious activity were instructed to write letters to fellow students as if they were from God. It was creepy finding notes from "God" in my mail box all that week. Also many of them were rife with appalling grammar/spelling errors. I personally opted out of it & just copied down scriptures in my nicest hand writing accompanied by little drawings for my friends and classmates. I just couldn't bring myself to sign "God" after my own words.

You silly people. Don't you know that the KJB (King James Bible, thank you) is the only inspired word of God for the English-speaking world?

Long time, no see, everyone. Thought I'd pop in over here and see what was going on, having been invited by my erstwhile add-on, Dr. Ransom.

I see that there are currently three topics being discussed.

1) devotionals

2) fiction

3) the extent of the canon.

#3 has been quite adequately answered by others, so I'll leave that alone.

#2 relates to a passage in a book I am reading, and I wanted to share what I read: it's quite helpful regarding the parable of the persistent neighbor.

Ithilwen said:

I'm going to use one of Jesus's parables as an example. In the "Ask, Seek, Knock" example, it portrays a man knocking on the door of a house of another man, because he needs something. But the second man doesn't want to answer. But because the first man keeps knocking, he will answer eventually. The first man, the one knocking, symbolizes us. And the second man symbolizes God. The point of the illustration is that we should keep asking and keep seeking God.

But, technically the second man is not a very accurate portrayal of God when it comes to his characteristics. God doesn't ignore his children when they knock, and he never gets too tired to answer. So if you look at it that way, it could be called an inaccurate example.

The puzzle here is created by a mistranslation, which makes it appear that Jesus suggests we must be persistent in prayer, and that God will answer us because we continue to “bother” Him. In fact, the word anaideia, translated “persistence,” also has the meaning of “avoidance of shame.” And that meaning fits the culture in which Jesus lived.
In the Near East and in Jewish thought, hospitality was very important. A visitor was considered the responsibility of the family with which he stayed as well as the entire community. What Jesus was pointing out in this illustration was that the neighbor would get up and lend the bread because it was the right thing for a neighbor to do. It would shame him and the community not to provide for the needs of a visitor.
What was Jesus’ point? If a neighbor would provide for a stranger because it was considered the right thing to do, how much more can we count on God to provide for His own children? We can surely expect our heavenly Father to act in a fatherly way. We can count on Him to answer our prayers!

Richards, L. (1998). Every prayer in the Bible (180–181). Nashville: T. Nelson.

Just wanted to help clear that up.

#1--I have a devotional (somewhere. I can't find it. I may have loaned it to one of my children) called Disciplines of the Inner Life.

I acquired this book in an unusual way. Some time ago, at least 12 years and perhaps even longer, my ddh (dear dead husband) worked as a prison guard. One day he came home with a HUGE sack of Christian books! Turns out that some Christian bookstores or publishers are glad to donate the unsold books to prisoners. A large semi of books had pulled up to the prison, and the guards were also allowed to choose from the books it carried.

This devotional was one of them: I'm sure I could have afforded it no other way.

http://www.amazon.com/Disciplines-Inner ... 0967772508
That's the link to it on Amazon.com.

I no longer use it, but I found it very helpful when I was ready for a deeper devotional, but not yet strong enough in my Christian walk to take the Bible straight up. It is a thinking devotional: you can't just leave it by the [ahem] "throne" and pick it up while you're in the "throne room" for a few moments. It used to take me nearly an hour to go through it each day IF I used everything that was available.

I don't think you'd get much out of it if you only had 15 minutes. But if you have 30 minutes, you will use this book for probably 2 or 3 years everyday and still not exhaust it all.

Hope that's helpful to someone!

mm

^^ That's very interesting Mother-Music.

However, I was just using that as an example. Even with the translation you gave, the neighbor is still different from God. For one thing, he's human, which God isn't. And for another thing, God doesn't answer our prayers to avoid shame, but because he cares for us. (I'm sure you already know this; and I know that you aren't implying this).

I know that Jesus was using that parable as an illustration of how God will care for us. But I was using the parable to make a completely different point.

I just gave that parable as an example to prove a point which, I think, it still proves. And that point was that, in fiction, things in the book don't have to be exactly like real life.

~Riella

^^ That's very interesting Mother-Music.

However, I was just using that as an example. Even with the translation you gave, the neighbor is still different from God. For one thing, he's human, which God isn't. And for another thing, God doesn't answer our prayers to avoid shame, but because he cares for us. (I'm sure you already know this; and I know that you aren't implying this).

I know that Jesus was using that parable as an illustration of how God will care for us. But I was using the parable to make a completely different point.

I just gave that parable as an example to prove a point which, I think, it still proves. And that point was that, in fiction, things in the book don't have to be exactly like real life.

~Riella

Absolutely agree, that the point you were making is still valid. I just thought that the insight on the scripture passage might help someone.

mm

Almost everybody on this forum seems to be a Christian of some sort. I happen to be an Atheist. I find that if the conversation can be kept civil, more is learned when the perspectives on matters are more distant.

If you would like to ask for an Atheist's input/perspective on anything, or you would like to have a debate or even convert me, I'm all ears. If you would like this to remain a discussion between fellow Christians, just tell me and I'll leave you guys to continue your discussions.

Welcome to NarniaWeb, Tesseract (cool user name!) and to this thread.

Your observation that many of the posters here are Christians, we've had some very articulate atheists (and other non-Christians) who have prompted some excellent discussion on this thread and its earlier iterations.

So you're quite welcome to participate in all the conversations here, including this one! I look forward to reading your posts.

Welcome to NarniaWeb, Tesseract! I'd be glad to include you in on the discussions!

I'm not quite sure where to begin. Maybe if you tell us a little bit about your beliefs and why you believe what you do, that'll get a conversation going?

~Riella

Welcome to NarniaWeb Tesseract! And feel free to post here... I like hearing other people's perspectives.

Ok I had a question to post here... and I forgot it... I'll post it when I remember again, sorry

Hey there, Tesseract! While I'm not an atheist, I think it's cool that you've come into this thread!

I find that it's kind of pointless to have as your object with a person the goal of converting them. You can win an argument with them, yes, but if you lose the relationship, or lose the chance to build a relationship, both of you have lost.

I find that it's a better idea to seek truth together. You know, swap around ideas and try to muddle our way to the right answer, or at least find common ground where we stand and ask each other questions?

Though, I must say, if you're not OPEN to seeking truth or listening to thoughts, then being here won't be much use to either you or me. It'd basically be a big argument and no one would come out of it any better, except for perhaps the winner coming out smug; and who needs that?

So, welcome, and glad to have you, and I hope you have a good mindset. I'd love to seek truth with you any day.