To add to DK's comment about the Flood, you are correct, Tesseract. Rain waters alone would not be able to disrupt the rocks just like that to the point of disturbing the decay rate. But let me ask you, have you ever seen it rain in the desert? Getting 5-7 inches of rain in the span of one hour or so is very intense and when that happened here in El Paso in 2006, the desert had canyons carved on the scale of the Grand Canyon. Water is the 2nd most powerful of the four elementals (fire, air, water, and earth). We saw that in the 2004 tsunami in 2004. It moves very fast and when you look at areal or satellite photos an open area untouched by development, you can see evidence of water erosion in the very face of the earth.

The foundations of the deep described in Genesis 6-7 is likely the source of much of the Flood waters. And I have a theory that where those burst forth are the tectonic plate boundaries. And for it to take place just 4400 years ago as the Bible indicates makes sense with the behavior we see today. People always talk about a "Pangaea Continent" and ask where the Flood waters would have gone. I'm not convinced by Pangaea. Because Pangaea assumes we have the same land mass as we do today. The Flood waters receded into our four oceans and I have reason to suspect that the Flood is also the cause of the seasonal tilt that we have today. It is conceivable that the earth was impacted by a large meteor, asteroid, or comet and science does suggest that the Yucatan Peninsula was formed as a result of such an impact. That could be the trigger of the Flood.

The other thing about the Flood and fossils is that if you take the sediments that form the geological column, mix them all up in water and let them settle, they will settle in the order of the geologic column. And so far, only the pressures and speed of a world-wide flood creates the conditions to sort the the fossils we find.

Now, the issues of science changing and the Bible not must also be addressed. There is one thing we have learned about science that everyone who is remotely honest must agree with: science can be wrong. Science thought the world was flat. Science thought heavy object fell faster than light objects. Science thought the earth was the center of the universe. Science was wrong. But one thing you will also find, true science and the Bible have never conflicted with each other. The very fact that the Bible has remained consistent for 2,000 years is something that cannot be said of anything else. No other book, document, thought, concept, religion,.... etc, has been so thoroughly investigated and attacked like the Bible has. If there ever was a flaw in it, it would have been found. And what is even more amazing is that what is in the Bible applies to today even though it was written 2,000+ years ago. There is absolutely nothing like the Bible.

Now in terms of relying on something that changes vs something that doesn't, which is better? Since you were raised in a Christian home, I won't use family as an example. But all of us have been in school at some point. Tell me, which would you prefer in a teacher? An instructor that changes grading criteria every month or every week, or an instructor that uses the same grading criteria all the time? I've had both types. And I personally would prefer a much tougher instructor that is consistent in grading style than an easy instructor who I have no idea what to expect.

A sad thing that happens in today's society is when women in horrific abusive relationships keep returning to that abusive situation. We see it more often than not. Why does this happen? One reason is fear, but behind that fear is that it is something that the woman knows. She knows what to expect, has survived, and it's really all she knows. She would rather go back to the known bad situation than to face a freer unknown situation. This same can be said about many other people in other situations. We fear the unknown. We don't like being in situations we don't know how to handle.

That is one thing that make the Bible and Christianity survive this long. We know what to expect out of it. Even if God puts us in a situation outside our comfort zone, we know he will be there every step of the way. We know his love for us is better than anything we can imagine. We know God is the same yesterday, today, and forever more. We know he will not change his standards for one person or another. That is how we know that even the worst person we can think of can be saved. This is how people have endured persecution far beyond what any here in America really can fathom and stay true to their faith. If God ever did change and evolve, there is no telling what would happen.

When you get the time, I would like to know how you came to the conclusion that the God of the Bible appears to be self-contradictory.

And now for me to answer Dr Ransoms questions so you have another perspective on them.

1. Matthew 25 describes in parables not only what happens to those who believe in Christ, but also what happens to those who don't. Revelation 21-22 describes what this 'heaven' will look like. I'll say more later if needed.

2. Why does God do what he does? The very simplified version is to give him glory. Since God is the ultimate of ultimate beings only he is worthy of such honor. Does that make him seek boastful and arrogant? Perhaps but he is the only one worthy to do so. One of his names is Jealous and he does not like sharing glory. But I have another perspective on this. One reason God does what he does is to demonstrate his character. Why would God lay aside all he is and become a human for the purpose of dying one of the worst executions in human history? No possible answer can truly give it justice. You can't put into words what kind of love that is. You just can't do it.

3. Cain's Wife. Following Genesis 1-5, we learn Adam and Eve were the first two people in the world. They had three total identified sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain killed Abel and Seth replaced Abel (Genesis 5). Genesis 5 says Adam lived 800 years after Seth was born and had other sons and daughters. We don't know when Cain and Abel took place between the Fall and the birth of Seth. But it is not unreasonable to suggest they had other children between the three boys listed. Cain's wife was very likely his sister. Incest wasn't an issue until Moses came around in 1450 BC. That's my perspective.

4. Why did Jesus oppose the Pharisees? It wasn't just that they were strict about the laws and publicly showed up (like with fasting). Jesus was after the heart. The Pharisees were making the people do stuff they would never do and thought they were right in doing so. Look at the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus was after the heart. But Jesus wasn't after all Pharisees. He spoke with Nicodemus who was open to what Jesus had to share.

5. The big story is in a quick nutshell is about a God who created a whole universe, a villain who deceived the creation, man in particular, into rebellion and sin, and the battle that God fights to redeem that Creation. It is just like a great novel and like all stories, it too will have an end.

Rain doesn't disturb the decay rate maybe, but part of the reason why you can't accurately use carbon dating on anything after the Industrial Revolution is because humans emitted so much CO2 and CH4(? ->that's methane right, if not I mean methane) into the atmospere that it messed up the levels of C-14 in everything (the other primary reason being that because it is so recent, not enough decay has taken place yet.) Also if I'm correct they don't use carbon dating on things like dinosaurs, because the things are so old that the carbon all decayed already, instead they use other radioactive elements with a longer half life (this is of course naturally assuming that the clocks are correct). However, my point is, that it is entirely possible for such things to affect the levels of such elements in the atmosphere, so it's not entirely impossible.

EDIT!!!

But it is not unreasonable to suggest they had other children between the three boys listed. Cain's wife was very likely his sister. Incest wasn't an issue until Moses came around in 1450 BC. That's my perspective.

May I make a few points from this? Firstly this is a perfect example of a time when religion/ religious laws changed. Secondly, I've always wanted to state my biology based opinion of this: To some people this seems contradictory as the first humans had to interbreed, but as Fencer pointed out, the laws against incest came later. Why? Well my theory was that God made the laws for our own survival. At first, in order for the species to survive, we had to interbreed with close family, because there were too few of us to do otherwise. But eventually the population started to multiply, as did different kinds of genes. Because of this God outlawed incest, since it had come to the point were interbreeding was no longer benificial to our survival, but instead it had become detrimental, limiting the gene pool and increasing the likely hood that genetic diseases would show up be carried into each generation.

To elaborate on a point Digs made above, many of the classical scientists (Newton, Kepler, etc) believed nature was worth studying because it was the creation of a reliable being who didn't change. In that sense, natural laws like F=ma and Einstein's E=mc2 are reliable because they've stood up to repeated testing in the field - and because they reflect an unchanging Creator.

This secular source cites some of the variables that affect the reliability of carbon dating results. No matter one's position on this, it's worth noting that the half-life of C-14 is 5730 years, insufficient to give answers millions of years old.

...science can be wrong. Science thought the world was flat. Science thought heavy object fell faster than light objects. Science thought the earth was the center of the universe.

I do not disagree with the premise that science can be wrong. The radical changes I've seen in my own area of interest (astronomy) in the last 40 years are good examples.

But I think the point others have made is that science is self-correcting - in an ideal world, at least, hypotheses are tested and changed (if needed) as new observations are made. You allude to a couple in your post: Galileo's famous Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment, adoption of the Copernican model, etc.

But I must disagree with the first. There were notions of a flat earth in very early days - before observational science as we consider it now - but the Greeks began to speculate on a spherical shape as early as Pythagoras, in the 6th century BC. The classical Greeks generally understood the world was round, not flat. Eratosthenes made a reasonable approximation of the earth's circumference, by means of a clever experiment, around 240 BC. As an aside, this was understood in the Middle Ages as well - Columbus wasn't ridiculed for questioning a flat earth model; the issue was disagreement on just how big the world was.

To get back on topic, angelwings makes a good point - science and faith in general (or Christianity specifically) do not have to be mutually exclusive.

One other observation:

Now granted most Christian's conceptions of science and theories, hyptheses, and such are fatally flawed...but so much of science is based on stuff that by what I understand of the atheist definition we haven't proven yet... Such as Digs example on magnestism, or the atomic theory....

I think I can agree, to a point. But what exactly would constitute sufficient 'proof'? Much of our civilization points toward the validity of the models in place: even the fact that we're having this very-interesting conversation (which boils down to little more than ones and zeroes somehow transmitted through the ether ) shows that our understanding of electricity and other fields (pun intended ) - though not perfect - is adequate to allow these things to work, and to work repeatedly.

A classic example is our understanding of gravity: when Voyager 2 reached Neptune in 1989, a controller compared it to making a 3600 mile golf putt. It works!

It may be worth making a distinction between science based on repeatable observations (as I've cited here) and scientific theories of origins, which rely on hypotheses which cannot be tested by repeating them in the lab.

Well, there's also the fact that early mankind had such a pure gene pool, that inbreeding with one's sister would not have had adverse effects.

CH4(? ->that's methane right, if not I mean methane)

Yep, that's methane

I think I can agree, to a point. But what exactly would constitute sufficient 'proof'?

I'm afraid I'm a bit confused here as to wether you mean "scientific proof" or "religious proof" or both....

In either case I suppose you really can't be 100% sure of anything, you can only believe in it.

However for clarification by "fatally flawed" I meant how many Christians state that scientific theories are "theories" and therefore pure guesses... this is not enirely accurate because a theory is based on hypothesis and such that have been tested and observed over and over and have not been discounted. In other words in science theory does not equal guess. But a lot of Christians like to say that it does in their argument, which of course gets them nowhere because the scientists will simply say that they're wrong in saying they have no evidence, which just leads into a continuos back and forth argument that grows into the point in which neither side will listen to the other... Basic point the "its just a theory" argument is a bad one due to a simple gramatical error, and the same point can be proven in much better methods than relying on words, such as specific examples.

e. Just using dating for an example, specifically Carbon-14. It understandable where scientists get the dates based on the laboratory observed rate of decay of Carbon-14. But there is more to it than what labs can reveal. Did you know that a catastrophic event can greatly alter the rate of decay temporarily?

Hi there again, FencerforJesus!

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm picking on you, just dropped in to hopefully give a followable defense of science. The old "carbon-dating isn't very accurate, you know! This one scientist tried this one thing and it said it was 1234912394 years old but it was only 50 years old! Hah!" argument seems to be a result of being mislead.

There are actually over fifty ways of testing an object's age. Some of these include measuring radioactive decay, and some testing an object through levels of carbon, among various other methods. A little known fact is that carbon-dating is not even the preferred method for testing the age of objects!

Trying to say that evidence brought forth by over 50 ways of dating an object is invalid seems pretty misled!

The same thing applies to science. By induction, we learn it hold true in some cases, so we assume it hold true in all cases. We don't actually spend the time to prove it each time.

Well, for something to really be called scientific and empirical evidence, the same results will happen every single time provided that the conditions are the same. So until the result is not the same under the same circumstances, what causation do we have to abandon our evidence that leads us to this conclusion?

Faith is prevalent in our everyday lives far more than we realize. We take things for granted and unwittingly we have faith that those things will be there when we want them. And from a scientific point of view, how do we know that the very forces that hold the atoms together are going to hold for x-years down the road? We just don't know what will really happen. Science is imperfect in that way and others.

I'd say a little more, but I have to go to class.

Well, I'm not sure you could really classify this as the same sort of faith that we have in god. It's just a "common faith" that all humans, religious or not, seem to share. Even so, this is a good point. We should all be humbled by the fact that a black hole could spontaneously appear over the Earth and suck us all into our doom! But we have "faith" that that won't happen, and so we make plans to go out for dinner tomorrow.

It all lies in a sense of being "reasonable", assuming that the normal will happen. Is this right or wrong? Hard to tell.

Well, that's all for now folks, 'ought to be heading out as well!

I am well aware that C-14 is not reliable and there are many ways of testing things. I wasn't trying to say anything on that in particular. My point is as you mentioned, setting, circumstances, are not always the same for what some people assume them to be for their theories to hold. I was trying to point out that science is not perfect.

As for the faith issue, it was an analogy and I was simply trying to point out the argument about 'can't see, hear, or touch it then it doesn't exist'. But in a way it is still the same concept. Faith requires an object. Many people put their faith in their knowledge, their abilities, their job, their setting, etc. It is the same faith that should be placed in the Lord, but often is not.

That's it for me for tonight.

Hey back, Tesseract,

Already Fencer has given some more firmly Biblical (without need for a lot of research!) answers to my suggested questions. Perhaps that has helped prove just a little of what I'd hoped to show you: that no one, no matter how strong of a Christian Environment he was raised in, totally understands the Bible. That in essence would make your "atheism" based not on "I've seen what Christianity's about, and I don't want it any more" but instead "What I thought Christianity was about now seems silly to me." But as Fencer and others have already begun showing you, what you said in reply to those rather simply questions has shown others that you've bought into wrong ideas about what Christianity says.

My responses, to your responses, will overlap with a lot of what Fencer already said. Bear in mind that we aren't super-Christians here, trained theologians, able to whup the Apostle Paul in debate. And these aren't fringe components of the Bible, either. This is central stuff. Not sure how you missed it in your Christian upbringing, but hey, many Christians forget these crucial truths. But again, recognize: if you really want to reject Christianity and think Atheism is better, you need to be better informed about what Christianity really is.

As you may know, my questions are in bold; your responses follow.

1. (Repeated) Where, exactly, does the Bible say those who love Jesus Christ will spend eternity? Very interesting question. There are many bible verses that discuss where people go after they die. I don't have time right now to find them all and type up an analysis, but I think that it can be implied that those who love Jesus Christ will go to heaven. One example from the top of my head...Luke 23:43, where Jesus says to the convict on the cross, "today you will be with Me in Paradise."

Yes, that's where Christians believe Christ's people go now. But as Fencer has already alluded to, that's not what I asked. Instead I asked where those who love Jesus Christ will spend eternity? For the answer, look up Revelation 21-22, especially 21: 1-4. God will create a "New Heavens and a New ..." what?

Again, my point isn't to show anyone else ignorant or something, but simply to remind you: if you'd been saturated in or paid better attention to strongly Biblical Christianity, I wonder if you'd really claim to be an "atheist" now. I might as well say, "well, all atheists have no morals, etc., so I'll be a Christian instead." That's first of all, untrue about all atheists. So it is that what you think is in the Bible proves inaccurate.

2. What is the main, overarching, reason-above-all-other-reasons, according to the Bible, that God does everything He does? I don't know of any reason given as to why God created the universe in the first place. (He got lonely? ) I tried thinking of some reasons, but realized that they don't answer your question because they are too specific. Right now, I would have to say that the reason God did everything is because he thought that his creation was good. (Genesis)

Kind of a circular answer. Fencer was right on target with this one: God does all things for His glory. Christians who say only "God is love" tend to miss that. Why is God love? He has a greater motivation.

Check this out, from The Goal of God's Love May Not Be What You Think It Is:

Both the Old and New Testament tell us that God's loving us is a means to our glorifying him. "Christ became a servant ... in order that the nations might glorify God for his mercy" (Romans 15:8-9). God has been merciful to us so that we would magnify him. We see it again in the words, "In love [God] destined us to adoption ... to the praise of the glory of His grace" (Ephesians 1:4-6). In other words, the goal of God's loving us is that we might praise him. One more illustration from Psalm 86 "I will glorify your name forever. For your lovingkindness toward me is great." God's love is the ground. His glory is the goal.

This is shocking. The love of God is not God's making much of us, but God's saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead people to the only lasting joy, namely, God. Love must be God-centered, or it is not true love; it leaves people without their final hope of joy.

This also relates to my later question about what the Big Story of the Bible is. I won't nitpick on your outline of it -- but I think you missed the part about God doing all this because He is great, He wants to share more of Himself and His perfections with His people, and give everlasting joy.

As for God getting "lonely"? No way. That would be a pathetic, lowercase-G god.

The Apostle Paul told a bunch of Greeks on Acts 17: 24-25:

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."

(emphasis added)

The Biblical God needs nothing. He doesn't get lonely. Who said he does?

3. Where did Cain (Genesis 4) get his wife? (Had to ask! ) Is that supposed to be a trick question? If there is an answer to that question, I can't find it in Genesis 4.

Nope, but if you have enough fun with this "atheism" thing you'll find that "trick question" is out there a lot. Atheists and skeptics like to ask it, as if Christians haven't already read the Bible and thought through the answer, and written articles like Cain's Wife — Who Was She? at Answers in Genesis. (This article, by the way, comes up instantly when you search for "Cain's wife" on Google. These things are out there, for those who really want to find them. Are you sure you're not avoiding actual searches for answer to such "trick questions"? Really no excuse, you know, not for any of us, not in the Digital Information Age! )

4. How come Jesus opposed the Pharisees? Was it because they were very strict about God's Law and Jesus came to show a better way? Jesus was opposed to the Pharisees because they were corrupt and arrogant. They saw themselves as above everybody else because they (very publicly) followed all of God's laws. I saw Jesus's disobedience to the traditional Jewish laws as not a criticism of the laws themselves but a mocking of the Pharisees who took the law so seriously and in such the wrong way. Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Well, which one is it? Why would Jesus fault the Pharisees if they really were such sticklers about God's Law? A bit hypocritical, don't you think?

Evangelicals and others get confused about why Jesus debated the Pharisees so much. It was not because they took the Law so seriously or obeyed it in the wrong way. It was because they made up their own laws, ignored the real God's Law, and missed the Savior Whom the Law was intended to show all people needed, because we can't fulfill the Law no matter how hard we try. For more, see God's Law and Jesus' love.

Again, are you sure that you've really turned to atheism because you've figured out that whole Christianity thing and now don't like it? Or could it be that you need to know better what real Christianity is, then decide?

5. What's the Big Story of the Bible -- the metanarrative? The big story of the Bible is the tale of how God created a bunch of humans, let them abandon him, and then spent the next few thousand years trying to win them back to his side.

Partly true, but as I said above, I think you've missed the whole part about why God is doing this. Atheists tend to do that, whether they're new atheists or who've been plugging away at the gig for years. They also like to mock these details, as if any Intelligent Person (circular definition: atheists) can see how silly the idea is. Discerning Christians, though, know that many smart people and dumb people fill the ranks of both Atheists and Christians. So let's play fair and not mock, eh wot? These questions have been bandied about for many, many centuries. We're not the first. It would be arrogant to act as if we are.

By the way, you seem to have missed question 6. What do you think?

6. Do you see the Bible more as Life's Answer Book or Life's Little Instruction Manual, or do all its books/accounts have a greater purpose?

I would be interested to know what your answers to these questions are as well.

And now you have them, along with my re-stated friendly challenge: do not fall for that common temptation to think you have Mastered this whole Christianity thing, or that you're the only one to suppose you have come up with questions, objections and such. As proven above, you seem to be confused about quite a few things. And hey! There's no more shame in that, than there is for any professing Christian who also gets many things wrong. But there should be humility, and a willingness to listen to Christians who've actually read Scripture, studied how its books all fit together, and can answer much better what Christianity really is.

I was not aware that there's a test you have to pass before becoming atheist

I'd gladly suggest that as a test, not for entrance to Atheism, but whether an Atheist who claims "been there, done that with real Christianity" really has!

I was not aware that there's a test you have to pass before becoming atheist

No, there is NOT a test...BUT, if one is going to define their atheism by the fact that they REJECT Christianity, it is illogical to reject what you do not know. Tesseract has clearly proven that regardless of his alleged immersion in Christian culture, he does not understand even it's basic tenets.

The response I gave was provoked by somebody saying, "I don't get why Atheists would bother with Christians! Why can't you all just ignore us!" Which I found to be slightly ridiculous. And it also gets really old, really fast too. Regardless of people's actions, it is still not as culturally acceptable to be Christian than atheist.

I did not say that at all, and I would ask you to re-read what I did ask. You certainly answered the question as you posed it--but that is not what I asked. What I asked was why do atheists spend so much time thinking about a Being in which they do not believe?.

Which is a different matter entirely. I'd still be interested in your answer to THAT question.

mm

Tesseract, you have certainly generated a lot of interest on this forum. I haven't welcomed you yet, so welcome to Narniaweb.

I'm am a christian and I love science. I can see that it would be challenging in some ways to be an atheist in a culture with such obviously christian roots. Something to understand from a Christians' point of view is something my anthropology teacher in college said, "We live in a world of broken Christiandom" So christians are not as united or supportive of each other as it may seem from the outside. And many christians feel that their culture is crumbling around them and in some ways it is.

My disagreement with you is that you say religion is static. I agree our Bible has remained relatively unchanged for a very long time. However, within the Bible one can watch the understanding about God grow and shift. Something that has been pointed out to me is that the awareness of the devil as an immortal opponent of God seems to increase throughout the Old Testament. Also the idea of the Trinity isn't introduced until the New Testament. There are pressures within the church for things to stay static but even in more current centuries christians' overarching view has been shown to change. For example, many christians in America used to believe that slavery was okay with God. But the Quakers felt impressed by God that it was wrong and many of them became Abolitionists and actively worked to help slaves escape. And now many christians will say that slavery is wrong and that it goes against the will of God. So even as much as humans resist change, there has been change.

Science is well set up for change and for new observations. But when paradigm shifts do occur in science and, there are often deep conflicts among scientists. I'm reading "The Seven Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes and he talks about the mixed sometimes hostile reactions he received in the science community from his discoveries about DNA in "Neanderthal" skeletons.

I'm just trying to share some of my thoughts on religion and science and I hope its helpful in some way. Take care.

Right now, my internet is down. I'm on a computer at my local library and I have a 1 hour time limit. I took care of some things I needed to take care of and now I'm looking at this, and there's no way I can even read all the responses here in the 23 minutes I have left, much less reply.

The last time I tried to post, I ended up frantically trying to reply to as many people as I could, without having the time to proofread what I wrote or establish where I was coming from. for example, I forgot to answer one of Dr. Elwin Ransom's questions in my haste, and answered some of the rest with short, cheeky responses instead of something more thought out.

I see now that that was only counterproductive. I need to wait until I have somewhere around two hours to fully reply to everything on this topic. That might be a week from now or longer.

Hey Tess — that's why often I'm just not able to respond to everyone on these threads (especially with other writing projects, for websites and such). If I might make a suggestion, perhaps it would help to pick on area / line of thinking to consider, and save the rest for another time? For example, the idea of God doing all things, not just to save people because He's loving (although it's true too), but for His own glory.

I'd be curious about your thoughts on that foundational issue, and whether in your Christian background those who've taught you have based all that they said on that. Otherwise, the Bible does indeed become just another series of Dos and Don'ts, which missed the whole point -- and shuts down honest questions about what the point is.

And of course, please feel free always to PM me about such things!

I am very sorry if I am interrupting a lively discussion, for that is not my intent. But I'd like to revisit an earlier topic, now that my local newsagent has the latest (Jan/Feb) edition of Biblical Archaeology Review, an American archaelogical magazine (ISSN: 0098-944), in stock. And what an edition! One article which drew my interest, was 'In search of Herod's tomb'. But the article that is most relevant to what we were discussing further back in this thread was entitled 'Why Paul went West'.

As I understand it, Catholic Bibles contain the Apocrypha because the early Church drew upon the Septuagint, which was a mass translation of the ancient writings into Greek during the 3rd Century before Christ. The idea was to put a copy in the world-famous Greek Library at Alexandria. The work was done by 72 Jewish scholars, all independently, locked in different rooms, yet they produced the same version!

These very, very early "Old" Testaments -- the New Testament hadn't been finished yet, remember -- were translated into Latin from the Septuagint.

St. Jerome didn't like this copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy-of-et-cetera. He translated directly from the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, etc and skipped the Greek. At first he was fiercely criticized, especially by St. Augustine. Eventually Jerome's translation prevailed.

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.

Tanakh includes fewer books than the Septuagint. The books that were dropped are: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151.

The books that had been in Septuagint but were dropped from Tanakh are called Apocrypha.

I quoted from TOM's excellent post, because the BAR article sheds considerable light on what she had to say about the Septuagint, its origins and the Tanakh. I also fancy it sheds some light on Pentecost and why it was so very important to the newly formed Christian faith.

This article claims there were two distinct Jewish diasporas, one in the West and one in the East. The Western one was the one in Egypt, Asia Minor and in Europe, the one which was involved in the formation of the Septuagint, as TOM relates. The Eastern one, stretching from Judea, itself, to Babylon and beyond, relied on what would later become the Tanakh, plus an oral tradition to which it claimed exclusive rights.

This diaspora used Aramaic and Hebrew in their everyday doings, whlst people of Jewish faith elsewhere very often could only speak Greek and sometimes Latin as well, but could barely understand Hebrew let alone Aramaic. Like the despised Samaritans, whose Judaic rituals weren't considered 'kosher' in Jerusalem, the Western diaspora had different ways of carrying out the 'seder' or Passover, even of calling the new moon.

Paul was a very important evangelist, because he could gain access to the Western Synagogues and make good sense, not just because he was familiar with the rituals and languages of Jerusalem as a former Sanhedrin stooge, but because of his birth in Tarsus, where he was as fluent in Greek and Latin as he was in Aramaic and Hebrew.

And because of the neglect meted out to these Western practitioners of Judaism, Paul was like a breath of fresh air to them. And so what would become the early Christian church developed, until about the time of St Jerome when the rift between the East and the West was healed. About that time the Eastern diaspora started to realise that written information was just as vital as the oral tradition, and so St Jerome was able to compile an Old Testament, the Tanakh, which did not include the Apocrypha.

I found the article quite interesting because it shows just why it was so important in the Gospels and in Acts that the early Apostles should be able to speak other languages besides the ones they normally used. What do you think?