[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Kevin Cullis]

Jed,

On Sep 30, 2007, at 2:23 PM, Jed S. Baer wrote:

> On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:28:56 -0600
> Kevin Cullis wrote:
>
>> From my History degree the one thing that I remember is the concept
>> of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are first hand
>> accounts of something while secondary sources are writings about
>> primary sources. All of the Bible manuscripts are primary sources,
>> not secondary ones.
>
> I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that, at least from my  
> point of
> view. Just to play advocatus diaboli, I'll point out that there are
> extant many primary source accounts describing alien abduction. Simply
> labeling something "primary" doesn't automatically impute veracity.

I was trying to say that Homer's Illiad and other Greek writers had  
too much time between the date of authorship and the date of the  
document as compared with Biblical documents, therefore Biblical  
documents had greater veracity as documents than Greek writers, not  
saying that the Biblical documents were truthful in and of  
themselves. Basically I'm saying that there is a greater chance of  
allowing other documents to be labeled "true and complete" versus  
Biblical documents are too stringent and excluded from the same  
standard by some accounts. Now if we want to discuss the veracity of  
the writings themselves, bring it on! ;-)

>
> I'll quote David: For what it's worth, Mark probably didn't write  
> verses
> 9 onward.

Who's David here?

>
> Hmm, well then, who was the author? If we don't know who the author  
> was,
> then how do we know whether he's a primary source?
>
> I ran across a mention, in a treatise on Lutherans, that Martin Luther
> himself stated unequivocably that Paul was not the author of the  
> epistle
> to the Hebrews. Same question.

Just because Luther stated that Paul was not the author doesn't mean  
Luther is correct, we've come a long way in Archeology to not let  
historical comments to always be truthful. By this comment,  
Copernicus would have been seen and continued to be a heretic even  
today.

>
> When I think of primary sources, I think of things such as first-hand,
> eyewitness accounts, e.g. battlefield reports from Gen. Patton.

Yes, this is correct and what I was trying to say. But to assume that  
New Testament letters were "hand me downs" of oral tradition while  
could be true, is poor. The same thing goes for the tnternet, just  
because it is written somewhere today gives it veracity. BUT, I would  
have a greater belief in the veracity of Biblical literature because  
of the cost of writing it down in those days, i.e. it was not cheap  
of plentiful.

> The
> pentatuech is ascribed to Moses, but clearly, he wasn't present at
> creation. Of course, I've also read that Moses didn't literally  
> write the
> pentatuech, but rather that is was oral history for a time before  
> being
> commited to clay or parchment or whatever was used. (Sorry, don't  
> have a
> source for that, it was probably in a commentary on the Torah or
> Judaism that I came across at some point.)

By this comment, we were not around during the Big Bang so therefore  
we can't possibly know what happened during that time even with all  
of our scientific knowledge.

The one thing I can say about the Bible is that it tells the truth  
100% of the time, but does NOT contain 100% the Truth. Let's take a  
look at what I mean. In Gen 2:17 God states that "but from the tree  
of knowledge of  good and evil you shall not eat" while Eve is stated  
in Gen 3:3 as saying God said "You shall not eat from it or touch it"  
by adding to what God said. She either lied, misspoke, or was  
mistaken, but nonetheless, it records  accurately what transpired in  
this limited amount of material.

Kevin