Eccles Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 The bible is a forgery: http://www.infidels.org/library/historical...n_christianity/ A very important excerpt from "Forgery in Christianity": This book is a grave indictment, impossible to be made or to be credited unless supported at every point by incontrovertible facts. These I promise to produce and array in due and devastating order. THE INDICTMENT I charge, and purpose to prove, from unimpeachable texts and historical records, and by authoritative clerical confessions, beyond the possibility of denial, evasion, or refutation: 1. That the Bible, in its every Book, and in the strictest legal and moral sense, is a huge forgery. 2. That every Book of the New Testament is a forgery of the Christian Church; and every significant passage in those Books, on which the fabric of the Church and its principal Dogmas are founded, is a further and conscious later forgery, wrought with definite fraudulent intent. 3. Especially, and specifically, that the "famous Petrine text" -- "Upon this Rock I will build my church" -- the cornerstone of the gigantic fabric of imposture, -- and the other, "Go, teach all nations," -- were never uttered by the Jew Jesus, but are palpable and easily proven late Church forgeries. 4. That the Christian Church, from its inception in the first little Jewish-Christian religious societies until it reached the apex of its temporal glory and moral degradation, was a vast and tireless Forgery-mill. 5. That the Church was founded upon, and through the Dark Ages of Faith has battened on -- (yet languishes decadently upon) -- monumental and petty forgeries and pious frauds, possible only because of its own shameless mendacity and through the crass ignorance and superstition of the sodden masses of its deluded votaries, purposely kept in that base condition for purposes of ecclesiastical graft and aggrandizement through conscious and most unconscionable imposture. 6. That every conceivable form of religious lie, fraud and imposture has ever been the work of Priests; and through all the history of the Christian Church, as through all human history, has been -- and, so far as they have not been shamed out of it by skeptical ridicule and exposure, yet is, the age-long stock in trade and sole means of existence of the priests and ministers of all the religions. 7. That the clerical mind, which "reasons in chains," is, from its vicious and vacuous "education," and the special selfish interests of the priestly class, incapable either of the perception or the utterance of truth, in matters where the interests of priestcraft are concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Um...correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't forgery mean to copy or change something illegally? So how exactly does that make the Bible a forgery? What did they copy or change it from? From Dictionary.com: 1. the crime of falsely making or altering a writing by which the legal rights or obligations of another person are apparently affected; simulated signing of another person's name to any such writing whether or not it is also the forger's name.the crime of falsely making or altering a writing by which the legal rights or obligations of another person are apparently affected; simulated signing of another person's name to any such writing whether or not it is also the forger's name. 2. the production of a spurious work that is claimed to be genuine, as a coin, a painting, or the like. 3. something, as a coin, a work of art, or a writing, produced by forgery. 4. an act of producing something forged. 5. Archaic. invention; artifice. Since almost nobody uses the last definition anymore, and the crime of forgery is the one that everyone goes by these days, one must assume that is what the OP meant. I agree that the Bible is a lie, but it is technically not a forgery if you go by the common meaning of the word that everyone knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
currentchristian Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 I have not read Joseph Wheless' book, but in googling his name I found that in looking only at his Introduction one critical reviewer found the following: For a man intent on documentary proof of fraud, there is a significant level of error at even the basic level of accurate citation. 28% of the references are wrong or unavailable; 28% are inaccurate or can't be checked; and only 24% of the quotes correctly represent the author's views! Of course these figures are only a guide. Much real information is included, although heavily slanted. Nevertheless we have seen a significant level of misinformation in Wheless' account, and in some cases deliberate misrepresentation would seem to be a possibility. Source: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/wheless/wheless_intro.htm -CC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 The Donation of Constantine is a forgery. Can one 'forge' a myth? I regard the book as a source of lies, perpetrated by people who sold the book as literal truth. I tend to regard it as a similar object to fan fiction sites, but taken 50 to 100 years after the event and regarded as truth. It's like saying 'The Eagle Has Landed' is a factual history of World War 2, and then combining it with the oeuvre of Sven Hassel and then incorporating 'The Gospel of John' equivalent 'The Iron Dream' by Norman Spinrad. Would it be 'accurate'? No. Would it be a forgery? No. Could someone try and make it 'true'? Hell! YEAH! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sage Nabooru Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 CC makes a good point, I think this guy is kinda desperate to prove the Bible wrong and is not only misusing the term "forgery" but doing so with made-up information. Now I did once have a Bible, that I wish I still had, that showed that many of Jesus's quotes were quite possibly made up by Christian authors in later periods to make him appear more condemning of those who didn't follow him, and generally more in line with the exclusivist Christian viewpoint. It also had notes that detailed Revelation's dependency on the Roman emperors and other religions, and the Old Testament's copying of pagan mythologies. But that's not a "forgery". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 I can recommend Bart D Erhman's work on scriptural 'corruption'. The level of interpolation and cumulative error is quite entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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