Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
Philipvs and Rhyfelwyr, you wouldn't happen to know this one, would you?

I've been pondering what I learned about christianity in my childhood, as it seems that I've learned two odd things. I thought it was the normal variant of christianity until I was around 16 or 17 I think, when I learned that the "rest of the christian world" thought the exact opposite. And I'm curious as to what version of christianity I've been exposed to.... So here are the two things:
I've always thought the Christianity you were exposed to was well...odd. Mind, my Norwegian friends have had similar experiences.

1. I was thought that the word of the bible was absolute, delivered by god through the holy ghost, who "possessed", in lack of a better term, all the various writers of the bible, thus making it god's own words. Also, the holy ghost has protected every single translation of it, so every translation of the bible is just as correct. But the normal view is that the bible was written by men, isn't it?
Ok, this is largely a hardline Protestant invention. It comes from a percieved need to interpret scipture directly without sufficient education. The fact is, and it is generally recognised, tanslations are always faulty. There have been at least ten popular and servicable translation of the Bible into English in the last 40 years or so, and many less servicable ones. They don't agree, and these dissagreements are manifest evidence the fallability of the translators.

No one is seriously going to dispute that translations are inperfect if they have actually studied the Bible. I think Rhy would happily agree with me on this point, at least.

To be honest, if the reformers had really wanted people to read the Bible they would have taught everyone Greek and Hebrew, like Islam or Judaism.

The actual fallability of the original text is a more complex issue. Every Christian accepts that the motivation for the writing of the Bible was genuine and devout. So far as that goes, it could be called the "prompting of the Holy Spirit". It is also now widely recognised, and always has been all the way back before the Latin Vulgate really, that surviving manuscripts from the early Church suffer from scibal error, damage etc. As far as this goes, one of the rationals for the New Revised Standard Version about 20 years ago was that previously unavailable, and superior, copies of texts had come to light in the Dead Sea Area.

There are a number of scribal corruptions, varriations etc. The Gospel of Mark has two endings, long and short. So at some point God took his eye off the ball there.

As far as infallability of the orignal, this is a different issue. It is also, from a textual criticism point of view, irrelevant. All extant copies of the Gospel exibit chonological, geographic and historical oddities, even Mathew and Luke, theoretically the closest, dissagree at points. John dissagrees with Mathew to the extent that one, or both, is clearly wrong at certain points where they should converge. Mark demonstrates a confused understanding of Judean geography etc.

So, assuming God exerted his Power and subverted the free will of the original authors, one would wonder why he bothered at all. He clearly made no definitive effort afterwards.

Added to this, there are whole libraries devoted to the varried and nuanced ways to interpret what we do have.

2. Judas and the way he betrayed Jesus. I was taught that Judas did not betray Jesus. He was told by Jesus to do what he did, and that it was all part of Jesus' grand plan. And also that Judas was reluctant to do it, because of his great love for Jesus...

So, could anyone clear this one up for me? I'd be most grateful
This, I have not seen in a while. It comes, I believe, from the same determinist school of thought that says the Bibile must be infallable, just because. Basically, this is the idea behind the "Gospel of Judas" recently translated and published. The first known reference in the Letters of the Church Fathers is about 120 AD when it is denounced as heresy.

I know that's rather long, hope it helps.