Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

On Wed, 28 May 2025 04:27:51 -0000 (UTC), Mike Van Pelt
<usenet@mikevanpelt.com> wrote:

In article <whmZP.20802$WUcf.8194@fx01.iad>,
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

More assertions:
1. Jesus had something to say about those who sought "signs and
wonders". And it wasn't very nice.

>
1) How do you know such a person actually existed?
>
2) How do you know that person, assuming he existed,
  said anything about "signs and wonders"?

>
The Gospels were some of the later books of the New Testament
written.  Of those, John was clearly written after the other
three; among other things, it has more of the concept that
Christianity was becoming something separate from a sect
of Judaism, and it names the disciple who cut off the chief
priest's servant's ear -- quite probably because the others
were written while Peter was still alive; John was written
after Peter was safely dead.
>
The Rylands manuscript, a fragment of the Gospel of John,
is reliably dated about 120 AD.
>
Much earlier writings are the various letters by Paul and
others, clearly written before 70AD.
>
The standards for reliability of ancient documents are:
>
1) Number of copies of the documents
2) How well the copies agree with each other
3) How close in time the earliest copies are to the events.
>
By all of these standards, compared to the New Testmanent,
how do, say, the works of Tacitus, Cicero, Julius Caesar rate?
>
Not remotely close.  The works collected in the New Testament
blow them all away by these tests of reliability.
>
There is, of course, a fourth standard, which is never stated
by determinedly secular academicans, but is followed rigidly:
"Except Bible, we throw it all out if it's Bible."
>

Don't point to the KJV - primary contemporaneous sources only.

>
This is utter nonsense.  Nobody (except a few ... non
mainstream types ...) thinks the Bible originated with
the translators hired by King James.  I'm talking about
the originals, written mostly in Koine Greek, one or two,
I think may be written in Aramaic.

He knows this. He is a common garden-variety atheist, and nothing
anybody says will change his mind, for he will defend his deeply-held
religious beliefs to the bitter end. As will most if not all of us.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"