Old Testament vs New Testament

No probs, if you ever get the chance to visit one of their temples, do it.

I'm lucky I live in Sydney as they only build one per continent.

I'm in Perth. Haven't been to Sydney since '99.

@king_saturn: That painting has piqued my interest, do you know the title?

Not in those exact measurements... but Conversion Charts give us Modern Estimates

1 Samuel 17:4 "And there went out a Champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was Six Cubits and a Span"

Six Cubits in Feet is Nine Feet Tall

One Span In Feet is .075 Feet or 9 Inches

So Technically from Math Conversions Goliath was 9 feet 9 inches tall ( Correction )

Are those giants mentioned in the King James version of the bible?

I have no recollection of them in my bible studies.

New Testament.

Genesis 6:4 "There were Giants on the Earth in those days, and also afterward, when the Sons of God came into the Daughters of Men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown"

Sons of God = Male Angelic Beings

Daughter of God = Human Women

Where was your bible studies conducted?

The part about the fall of man in Genesis should be the first book of the Bible, the second and third book should probably be the Book of Enoch and Jubilees, and the forth book of the Bible should pick back up with Abraham and his father, as the rest of Genesis.

By the way, it was always known that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible.

As far as the topic at hand, the New Testament is the current state of affairs, while the Old Testament is like a backdrop or prelude for the New Testament. Trying to look at it as to which you prefer is a little bit misguided. Jesus is the link, because He came to fulfill the Law. In every respect, Jesus was the Jewish Messiah; Christian theologians have established somewhere around 99 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, in terms of establishing Him as the Jewish Messiah.

Which now you know it was never the case, right? P.s. it was always thought/assumed, not known ;-)

It's always been the actual case; Moses is the author of the first 5 books of the Bible.

Please explain?

@lordraiden: Isn't it generally accepted that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible? Or are you saying we can't be SURE it was him because it was so long ago?

I'm not a theologian but the old testament still has merit to christians today. As someone has already pointed out, Jesus said that he came confirm the teachings of the prophets, not to abolish them. He also said that he came to create a new covenant, which I believe is what he did on the cross. My brother-in-law is a pastor, though, so I'll have to ask him about some of the finer details when I get a chance.

@king_saturn: I always thought sons & daughters of God were just people.

@lordraiden A seminary class.

Technically I error there because the translation In Genesis 6 was "Daughters of Men" not "Daughters of God" ( got a little excited I guess )... Sons of God usually refers to Angels. You can look in Job chapters 1 and 2 and see that "The Sons of God" and "Satan" would present themselves before GOD's presence eluding to Angelic Beings.

it would be nicer if you refrained from calling it fiction.

If you don't agree with a thread, don't enter it.

It is something called free speech. I don't care nor do I fit what I say around what people may or may not consider "nice".

Who are you to tell people what they can and can't say and where they can and can't say it exactly?

No, I'm saying now that we know a lot more through science and archaeology, we know the first five books were written by different scribes in different time periods. Given that the character of Moses could very much be fictional (which I believe he is) with no shred of evidence for his existence outside of the story of Exodus, how does it make sense that a character who is only in the story of Exodus be writing about his own death when it happen and what happens after with Joshua and the conquest of Cannan etc? I'm saying back in the day when the bible was the bible and couldn't be question and any stray thought got shot down, it's well known that the OT is not one writer, let alone written in one time period, it's different documents written over the course of time, hundreds of years apart, by different scribes in different time periods of the Jewish people. Do people really still think that Moses wrote the OT himself? Again, outside that a lot of scholars/people would tell you that most likely Moses is a fictional character, where was it stated that he was a scribe and a story teller who wrote all this down?

Even in the NT, it's written down by different scribes over the course of different time periods. Mathew was not written by Mathew, John was not written by John. The apostles would have been mostly illiterate. Do people really think that even if they got a scribe, they sat him down and said "make sure you write this word for word, I have a lot to say?" Again, this depends a lot on your view point, if your religious and view the bible as inspired, or.......a book (that wasn't actually a book back then, it was different documents for different areas and towns written by many different scribes in the middle east on how to deal with life and their religion in their town). I believe a lot of people get confused these days thinking that a few thousand years ago people were carrying around this bible? There was no bible, there was only the documents written by various scribes for their town/sect, and they got put together of the course of a long time. Not to mention that we actually no original document at all, the best we have is a third or fourth generation copy of some of the NT documents.

Dropping by to note that this is the only entry I`ll post to this thread.

@lordraiden: Parden me, but dont we have a religion thread already?

@epictayman: We do but this is to discuss about objective analysis of the old and new testaments, as well as which book you prefer and the historical accuracies. This thread is not about whether you believe in God or Judaism or Christianity. Reread the OP.

Thank you. If it was about religion, then it would also be about Hinduism, Islam and every other religion you could think of. It's about the old and new testament, specifically. I repeat, this thread is not about religion or the belief in god, it's about discussing the specifics of the OT & NT, wrighters, dates, people etc not about the supernatural. Hopefully, people will get this and won't have to keep reiterating it through out the thread!

This is better than the religion thread.

I think his point was that we're all better off if we try to avoid argument, which is inevitable when say something like that.

Now, keep in mind that I am all for freedom of speech. But when you call the bible fiction in this thread, it's kinda like going to a thread that's asking "Who's better: Batman or Superman?" And saying "they both suck." It's fine that you believe that, but it will attract negative attention.

Well people can decide weather they want to respond to what someone says and how they respond.

Reading what he said. Seems like his point was that he didn't want me to say that and feels as if I shouldn't have said it because it offends him.So I responded as such.

All I said was that it is fiction. A more blunt version of "I don't believe in the bible". Saying that is just the same as someone saying "It is all real". And yet I don't see people claiming to be offended by that.

I new it would attract negative attention and it is sad that such opinions do. But the more people who share my views express it as such then hopefully it won't be demonized like it is.

The first 5 books of the Bible are labeled as being written by Moses; that's a good start and no reason to doubt that Moses authored those books (e.g. The First Book of Moses Called Genesis); also, Moses would have been leading the Israelites through 4 of the first 5 books of the Bible; thus, we can probably assume that either the book of Genesis was past down through oral tradition, by the time of Moses, or God indeed totally dictated the book of Genesis to Moses; the next four books show the Israelites' development through departing from Egypt, to building an army to fend of enemies, to crossing into the promised land.

@dshipp17@lordraiden Could you two not quote that anymore because I keep getting notifications, thanks

How can Moses have written a book describing his death? How long the Jews mourned him? Where they buried them? How did he know that Joshua was filled with wisdom by God? Moses was already dead.

Simply because the last few verses of the Fifth Book of the Bible describes Moses' death does not mean that he didn't write Deuteronomy and the prior Four Books of the Bible. Additionally, at the very most, this would mean that a later editor smooth over the material in the Books, not necessarily that Moses didn't write or inspire the Books; for example, "I" could have been replaced by "Moses" by the later editor/author; what you point out demonstrates that later revision were made to the Bible, but the Books were inspired and written by the noted author, with revisions that didn't necessarily change the substance of the intentions of the original authors. But, it is an interesting question to discuss who may have wrote the other Books of the Old Testament, following the first five Books of the Bible (e.g. the Book of Enoch and Jubilees).

Absolutely wow.

The way I see it, it may be a misunderstanding. He may have believed that you were trying to bait people, which I know wasn't the case.

I agree that it's sad that people are offended by religious views, whether they are for or against religion.

Atheists and religious people are likely to always demonize each other as a whole. And it's unfortunate.

Eh. Fair enough.

Well in general people who are not religious don't really use the offense card when arguing against religion. It is primarily used by religious people in regards to opposing view points.

I wouldn't say that.

@dshipp17: @pooty Stop quoting your quotes please I don't want to be continually pulled back in this thread!

I've pasted the link itself which you can go into and have a look, but I've borrowed a section of it and pasted it here for your perusal:

"Our tradition is that Moses wrote (or received) the entire Torah. However, scholars going back to the 2nd century CE, or for an example in medieval times, Ibn Ezra in the 12th century, found troubling evidence that Moses did not in fact write the Torah. For example, there are references in the Torah to Moses in the third person, such as his being modest, or naming Edomite kings (Gen. 36) that were known to have lived after Moses died. Subsequent scholars found more and more problems that suggested more than one source. Early in Exodus, for instance, 6:3 (P) and 3:14 (E), it is stated that the personal name of Yod-He-Vav-He was not employed prior to Moses, even though that name permeates the book of Genesis.

Starting with Spinoza in the 17th cent, and flourishing with German scholarship in the mid-19th century, analysis grew to the point where, as Speiser says in his introduction to the Anchor Bible Genesis, "the conclusion which virtually all modern scholars are willing to accept, is that the Pentateuch was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods." [Speiser, Genesis p. xxiii]As with any theory, its acceptance rests on its ability to explain various problems and discrepancies in the text. Although today many points remain in dispute within this school of thought, those disputes are about which source is responsible for a given passage and what were the influences on that source, and are not about whether or not there were different sources or what were the principal characteristics and concerns of each source.

As a gross oversimplification of that perspective, analysis of the Torah reveals four separate strands or sources, each with its own vocabulary, its own approach and concerns. Those four sources are:

• The "J" source, from "Jahweh," the German Christian rendering of Yod-He-Vav-He, the word for God used almost exclusively by that source, and which generally presents humans in various situations in which their actions and words convey the meaning.
• The "E" source, for "Elohim," the word for God most commonly used in that source, in which the focus is on events more than on the individuals involved.
• The "P" source, for "Priestly," which focusses on the formal relations between God and society, including the genealogies which document the chain of transmission of God's message and authority from Creation to Moses. "P" uses both Elohim and El Shaddai.
• The "D" or "Dtr" source, for the Deuteronomist, source of the book of Deuteronomy and likely in addition the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and I and II Kings. Generally speaking, the Deuteronimist emphasizes centralization of worship and governance in Jerusalem.

The documentary hypothesis also uses the shorthand "R" for the Redactor or editor who brought together the J, E, P and Dtr material into a single set of writings we know as the Torah.

It should be noted that the use of each of these alphabetical shorthand letters does not necessarily imply that there was a single individual who wrote all of any given strand of material, but rather there was a like-minded group that existed over time with shared perspectives and traditions.

http://www.bluethread.com/whowrotetorah.htm

Old Testament could be argued as being more important out of the two due to its establishing of God, and His creation of the world and what followed. In my culture, the New Testament is more referred to as we focus on the life of Jesus Christ and those around him and the majority of our celebrations centre around him, even though they also coincide with remembrances of what transpired in the Old Testament (Passover during the time of Easter).

I do think overall the establishment of the Ten Commandments make the Old Testament more important in terms of textual importance. Especially since the New Testament is mostly comprised of several authors telling the same story.

some interesting commentary on (King) David. I believe the only reference we have to a David outside of the bible is his name mentioned in the Tel Dan stele mentioning the House of David about how King Hazael from Damascus killed ........insert name......... from the House of David. That's about it, as far as I know. An interesting watch, imo. What are peoples thoughts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele

What language did Jesus speak? What language was the original NT txt written in?

@lordraiden: NT has The Apocalypse which is pretty interesting, but OT's probably more consistent if you're looking for interesting consepts.

The Gospel of John nearly didn't make the NT and was very indecisive at first as it is right out there. It's a lot about revelation.

@lordraiden: Ok sure but it's still in the NT sooo...

Haven't yet finished reading the old testament.

I have problems understanding sometimes, Christians will read verses from the Old Testament, and upon me asking questions will then say it is irrelevant since Jesus brought the new covenant. If in the Christian viewpoint, the old covenant, and the Old Testament isn't important, why would Jesus have quoted verses in Deuteronomy when tempted in the forest by Satan? Let alone, who recorded that event if Jesus and Lucifer were alone? Lol (-edit, last question should be in religious thread).

Some will tell you he came to fulfil the old laws, some will tell you he came and did away with the old laws?? That is why it gets so confusing I find it with Christians, because, essentially, they are not Jews, so they will pick at what they feel is relevant to them from the old testament. To be fair, they tend to do with same with their new testament.

Yes, it is, not that I was disputing that, obviously, since it is in there, as whacked out as it is ;-) That gospel is a clear case of a night out on the shrooms lol

So, does anyone still really believe that Moses (if such a character even existed?) is still the one behind writing the OT??

@lordraiden: What really interested me in The Gospel Of John is how the rock group Genesis portrays it in their song "Supper's Ready". If you haven't, you should really look it up.

Interesting.

No, re-read the first page!

I did. You are talking about fantasy and fairy tales. Keep it in the religion thread.