T-Bone

I’m looking into that – I have a few of Bullinger’s works…my short answer is appendix 1 page 5 of Bullinger’s Companion Bible – he has only a half a page and it’s titled “THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ACCORDING TO THE HEBREW CANON” and then he briefly organizes it into the law, the prophets and the psalms (writings). He doesn’t address any criteria by which the OT was determined to be the official canon other than recognizing what the Hebrews accepted as the canon. And when I say he “organizes” them – he simply shows a literary structure using Roman numerals and letters to outline it all. For what it’s worth, this is one of the few things I like about the Companion Bible – in noting the literary structure of Scripture there’s not a whole lot you can royally screw up. And in general, just let me say I prefer analyzing the original work that wierwille plagiarized from rather than wierwille’s thinly disguised and mangled version of it. Sifting through wierwille’s plagiarism in order to remove his insidious hodge podge is a waste of time. It’s like trying to reinvent recycled toilet paper… Mike made reference to something like “a b b a “ structure earlier on this thread…I think he was using Bullinger's literary structure notes...anyway…Here's a few links on literary structure of the Bible followed by a couple of specialty study Bibles I’ve found to be helpful on this analytical process: Bible Literary Structure Literary Structure in the Bible A Guide to recognizing literary structure relationship The Literary Study Bible ESV (Note The Literary Study Bible ESV focuses on literary features rather than historical, cultural, linguistic. I find I get a better sense of the logical flow of thought – “commentary” and notes are brief and are “boxed off” as lead-ins ahead of the text so as not to be a distraction.) The Outline Bible (Note The Outline Bible and the outlines use literary devices like alliteration, rhyme, etc. like bullet points to help a student or teacher visually remember the main ideas of a section of Scripture. Just to be clear – there’s no Bible text in this book – you use it in tandem with your preferred Bible version. ) ~ ~ ~ ~ I’ve been looking through the appendix index of Companion Bible and found things of note: 1. Appendix 94 THE GREEK TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT …Introduction. While modern critics are occupied with the problem as to the origin of the Four Gospels, and with their so-called “discrepancies”, we believe that Matthew, Mark, and John got their respective Gospels where Luke got his, viz. anothen = “from above” (Luke 1.3, see note there); and that the “discrepancies” , so called, are the creation of the Commentators and Harmonists themselves. The latter particularly; for when they see two similar events, they immediately assume they are identical. OldSkool, I’m glad you brought this up. That right there is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that wierwille plagiarized Bullinger like crazy! This reveals wierwille’s a priori assumptions about Biblical research. Lovely. ~ ~ ~ ~ 2. Appendix 95 on page 137 & ff of Companion Bible there is something very revealing about Bullinger’s a priori assumption…on page 139 of the appendix “THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE ORDER OF ITS BOOKS” Bullinger says Our English Bibles follow the order of the Latin Vulgate. This order, therefore, depends on the arbitrary judgement of one man, Jerome (A.D. 382-405). All theories based on this order rest on human authority and are thus without any true foundation. You know – it has just occurred to me that the way Mike has been going on and on challenging the idea of anyone exploring the New Testament Canon – I get the sense that Mike has bypassed wierwille’s patchwork playbook and is going directly by Bullinger’s playbook…I dunno – just a guess…

“allusion” – that’s the “wrong misnomer” (now that two-word phrase " wrong misnomer" - actually said in a certain foundational class - yes that is my allusion to a certain plagiarizing, pathological liar, thief, drunkard, and sexual predator who singlehandedly canonized a hodge podge of nonsense called Palafel – a Middle Eastern word salad that is difficult to digest) Ironic that your imagery brings to mind wierwille’s fascination of Bullinger’s erroneous 4 crucifixes by Jesus’. Evidently Bullinger and wierwille stayed far away from Bible scholars. Damn those blood-sucking con artists!

I understand the expression “you are what you eat” to mean it is important to get good food in order to maintain health. Metaphorically cognitive skills are part of one’s “digestive system” . I did “eat” a lot of bad stuff for 12 years of following wierwille. Besides indigestion that led to a lot of constipation too - and some bad gas. …and sleep disorders during PFAL classes. … I’m into “unprocessed food “ now - I’ll leave the processing to my cognitive skills department.

How does exploring when the books of the Bible were written and how the “Bible” was canonized make one an unbeliever?

Chocfull , thanks for posting that. I started listening to it last night in bed until I got sleepy . I’m going to finish it later today . good stuff!

I don’t want to be nitpicking in a doctrinal discussion but it really is comical when someone gripes about others not examining their own “postulates” when that’s exactly what they do. It reminds me of another thread where the same person went on about how critical thinking was so overrated.

It seems contradictory to say one leaves no stone unturned while at the same time refusing to check out hyperlinks that address the topic - and of all things asking another person to summarize the data of those links for them. Seems like a lazy person’s way of getting others to leave no stone unturned.

My 2 cents on the real issue thus far in this discussion - there’s a difference of opinion as to what’s God-breathed. The Bible says of itself it is co-authored - God inspired humans to relate His message. I think textual criticism and honest hermeneutics acknowledges this coauthored nature and like archeology seeks to uncover the original message. I think it’s silly and disrespectful for someone to get all up in arms over textual criticism or criteria for determining a canon because that’s what unbelievers do.

Sorry to inform you but the title of this thread is The New Testament Canon – you can check out the starter post – here “I'd rather discuss the scripture references that I found in my 10 year search for canon info.” You see Mike, the definition of canon has nothing to do with scripture references. Canon = an accepted rule or guide about how people should behave or about how something should be done. A canon is also a religious rule put in place by someone of authority. In the Roman Catholic Church, for example, rules approved by the pope are considered canon. The body of all the religious laws is also called a canon. The word canon is also used in religious contexts to specify which pieces of writing a person or group has determined are officially part of the teachings and religion. "Canon" originally has religious connotations, where it basically means "official." So canon texts are the authoritative books that a person or group has decided upon that make up the Bible…in all the definitions of canon it revolves around a group…a person…who decides what is accepted…it has nothing to do with the Bible itself or what any book claims within its own pages - it has to do with the criteria a person or group uses to determine what's in the canon - what is accepted as OFFICIAL As Wikipedia states - Various biblical canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. from Wikipedia: Biblical canon guess you didn’t check out the hyperlinks I gave on dating the Bible and canon of the Bible…oh well to reiterate...this thread is NOT about verses on the topic The New Testament Canon on a side note - I love exploring religious texts and not afraid to think outside the box of canon - you might want to explore this baby - The Encyclopedia of Lost and Rejected Scriptures: The Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha

That’s funny because I took a class that claimed it would enable me to separate truth from error. It was called PFAL. Gee what a rip off! “the teacher” victor paul wierwille said there were 4 crucified with Jesus…what baloney…looks like wierwille couldn’t separate truth from error in Bullinger’s work – which he plagiarized !…and that make him qualified to teach me how to separate truth from error… no thanks…your testimonial does not ring true…you should have gone dancing with the deadheads…now you’ve made a mess all over this dance floor.

“Oddly, it was Chris Geer who steered me to inquire within the Bible, instead of academic history approaches.” That’s the same approach wierwille had. Screw what real academic scholars have to offer – let me show you what The Word says about itself. If it's wrong, I'll tell you. You might want to look into textual criticism . Seems like you want to recycle the same baloney wierwille promoted…wait, wait – recycle that’s it – let me repost something I said on another thread – here see how real scholars do analyze the ancient texts compared to wierwille’s playing telephone with translations and versions - - which are interpretations of the ancient texts - he didn't even look at the ancient texts himself - he read someone else's interpretation of the text - he didn't even know much about the Biblical languages...he lied about taking correspondence course from Moody...PFAL was a royal con job!...anyway here's an excerpt from my post: I think we can shorten the discussion by just getting right to the heart of the matter; two notable scholars F.F. Bruce and Sir Frederic Kenyon – both with expertise in the historical reliability of the New Testament have stated that very little has been lost as to what was originally written in the New Testament docs, in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by FF Bruce... it says on pages 14 and 15: “The study of the kind of attestation found in MSS and quotations in later writers is connected with the approach known as Textual Criticism. This is a most important and fascinating branch of study, its object being to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the documents in question. It is easily proved by experiment that it is difficult to copy out a passage of any considerable length without making one or two slips at least. When we have documents like our New Testament writings copied and recopied thousands of times, the scope for copyists’ errors is so enormously increased that it is surprising there are no more than there actually are. Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice. To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none: ‘The Interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.’ “ == == == == == Bruce’s point is simple – with the increase of hand-copies comes the possibility of scribal errors – but that also means you have that many more “witnesses” as to what was originally said. And another thing to consider is what type of scribal errors occurred. Was a word misspelled, or repeated or transposed, etc. - - these would be easy to spot and corrected by comparing other copies... It appears wierwille is somewhat removed from analyzing the actual texts that are still in existence; in the PFAL book, page 128 in chapter 11, “The Translations of the Word of God”, wierwille states: “Since we have no originals and the oldest manuscripts that we have date back to the fifth century A.D., how can we get back to the authentic prophecy which was given when holy men of God spoke? To get the Word of God out of any translation or out of any version, we have to compare one word with another and one verse with another verse. We have to study the context of all verses.” == == == == == I see two issues with wierwille’s approach: First: He’s off by about a century and a half on the oldest manuscripts in existence – Bruce notes on page 10 of his book that there are in existence over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part and that the best and most important of these go back to somewhere about AD 350. Second: wierwille is not comparing Greek manuscripts – instead he is comparing translations or versions of the Bible! That’s like playing the telephone game - the first person states a message and by the time it goes through a whole line of people the message might sound somewhat different from the original. wierwille is at the end of the line - comparing how one translator interprets a phrase in the Greek to how another translator handles the same phrase. Frankly I don’t have much faith in wierwille’s ability to see beyond his own doctrinal preferences to note differences or similarities in translations since he would come up with goofy phrases that blurred variations like “all without exception” and “all without distinction” – which is the same thing. End of excerpt from my post on another thread ~ ~ ~ ~ Also, it seems like you’re working out from a confirmation bias. How do you determine what “was decent and in order for the men to whom God gave His revelations to, also received the revelation as to how to have it preserved and passed on, canonical issues included”? This sounds like circular reasoning.

Well cool - but you seem to have made the same false assumptions he did

I wonder where you learned all that. It seems to echo the same misconception that wierwille pushed on TWI-followers. So, we would need wierwille’s great “research skills” and of course God’s assistant to help him filter out the error in plagiarized material. In my opinion, one of the many subliminal messages buried deep in wierwille’s ideology is that The Word takes the place of the absent Christ and a variant of that might be The Word takes the place of the Spirit of God. Every PFAL grad understands that The Word is code for wierwille’s interpretation of the Bible. It is pathetic how many different ways wierwille has supposedly figured out how to limit God. I’ll share a post from another thread in a bit that shoots holes in the false assumption that John the Baptist or Jesus “had a perfect set of scriptures to learn from”. In PFAL wierwille makes such a big deal in Luke 4 about Jesus finding the place where it was written in Isaiah – oh how He must have studied “The Word” . I think wierwille was so gung-ho self-promoting with his class that teaches “The Word” that the Spirit of God is given little attention. Backing up to Luke 3 we read Jesus was baptized… And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Note the continuity – our attention is again drawn to the Holy Spirit right off the bat in Luke 4 - in just a few excerpts: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil… Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” excerpts from Luke 4 Jesus didn’t need “a perfect set of scriptures to learn from” – He had the Holy Spirit ! And news flash – a perfect set of scriptures – wasn’t even available back then! Now moving on to my post from another thread that’s relevant here ~ ~ ~ ~ I’ve shared this on the 2nd wave thread – - - here - I’ll share just some excerpts and include the hyperlinks that relate to this thread because it all has to do with “The Bible” Jesus had access to: In the AUTHORIZED book on TWI, titled “The Way Living in Love” (by Elena S. Whiteside, co 1972, American Christian Press, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-89132), on page 178 Whiteside quotes wierwille as he talked about his long search for definitive answers…wierwille stated “I was praying. And I told Father outright that He could have the whole thing, unless there were real genuine answers that I wouldn't ever have to back up on. And that's when He spoke to me audibly, just like I'm talking to you now. He said He would teach me the Word as it had not been known since the first century if I would teach it to others. Well, I nearly flew off my chair. I couldn't believe that God would talk to me.” Expanding on what I said in my previous post: “Think about the early days of the 1st century church. They didn’t have little New Testaments to pass out for witnessing or to follow along with while in church. They didn’t have a complicated theological system and didn’t need to teach converts the keys to the interpretation of The Word - they EXPERIENCED and SHARED about the Living Word - Jesus Christ. Mark 16:20 says they simply went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord WORKING WITH them.” I add the following... Contrary to wierwille’s IMAGINATION of how HE THOUGHT “The Word” was made known in the first century – there is scriptural evidence to indicate Jesus as well as famous preachers like Paul had to rely on whatever scrolls were available in local synagogues… Acts 17:1-4 ESV mentions a typical means used by Paul: ‘Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.” The only “Bible” in Jesus’ and Paul’s day were copies of scrolls of what we’ve come to know as the Old Testament see Bible Hub - The Bible in the Days of Jesus Christ - and it’s not like every synagogue or other repository for religious / sacred writings had the ENTIRE Old Testament. An interesting side study is the formation of the Old Testament…”It was during the reign of Hezekiah of Judah in the 8th century B.C. that historians believe what would become the Old Testament began to take form, the result of royal scribes recording royal history and heroic legends. During the reign of Josiah in the 6th century B.C., the books of Deuteronomy and Judges were compiled and added. The final form of the Hebrew Bible developed over the next 200 years when Judah was swallowed up by the expanding Persian Empire.” ( from History website - how the Bible was formed ). According to one answer offered on the internet: “…Your average synagogue in Jesus’ day would likely have no scrolls at all, and not even a building. Please remember that Jesus lived during the Second Temple Era. Rabbinical Judaism centered around synagogues did not develop until after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple some four decades after Jesus’ death. During Jesus’ lifetime, the typical synagogue was just a group of villagers who met to decide local matters according to what they knew of the law, much of which would have been transmitted orally in the rural area of Galilee where Jesus lived, where there weren’t even any Roman roads. In the larger towns/cities the synagogue would have met indoors, and would likely have had scrolls containing the Law. But the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (which Christians call the “Old Testament”) containing the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings had not yet been established as a canon. Various groups used various collections of scrolls, not all of which agreed with the official scrolls held at the Temple in Jerusalem. And at the time of Jesus, when the legitimate Zadokite priests had been replaced by Rome with Idumean priests, who had no scriptural authority to hold their positions in the first place, many groups considered the current Temple leadership to be illegitimate. The followers of Jesus, for example, were into the Enoch traditions, which were relatively recent and generally not considered authoritative. In short, a synagogue at the time of Jesus was nothing at all like a modern synagogue. It was not involved in worship, which was centralized in Jerusalem officially but also still took place in various rural “high places” where there were altars and in homes. Rather, the synagogue was more like a local court which decided what to do about all the minutiae contained in the Law, such as divorces, how to compensate someone whose livestock had been allegedly harmed by someone else, what punishment to mete out to a thief, and so forth. Whether or not an actual Torah scroll was available depended on how large and wealthy the place was.” From Quora - During Jesus' time, would the average synagogue have had all the Old Testament scrolls? Even a quick search on the internet of WHEN The Bible was written will give you a wide variety of answers – NONE of which will support wierwille’s FANTASY that God would teach him the Word as it had not been known SINCE the FIRST CENTURY…wierwille’s ABSURD, RIDICULOUSLY FANTASTIC CLAIM makes God look like an idiot who never paid attention at a college or seminary ( wierwille’s ABSURD, RIDICULOUSLY FANTASTIC CLAIM makes God look like an idiot who never paid attention at a college or seminary (whether accredited or not ) when curriculum got into the history on how we got the book known as The Bible. Wikipedia – Dating the Bible Wikipedia – The New Testament Bible Gateway Blog - When Was Each Book of the Bible Written? Grace To You.org - When were the Bible books written? Biblical Archaeology.org – When was the Bible written? United Church of God.org - When were the books of the Bible written? CARM.org - When was the Bible written and who wrote it? By Matt Slick The International Bible Society - When was the Bible written? End of excerpts from my post about “the Bible” in Jesus and Paul’s day on the 2nd wave thread

I’m with you on this…I no longer entertain the bizarre contradictory pseudo-science speculations of wierwille…consider the following wierwille- theories along with some counterarguments I’ve thrown in the mix: 1. Life is in the blood…God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul… so which is it? Is the “lifeforce” (?) in the blood or in the breath? 2. Adam and Eve were originally formed, made, and created as body, soul and spirit…the body is made of matter. What is the soul made of? What is the spirit made of? how is soul different from spirit? 3. If breathing is a bodily function (see point 1 & 2 ) then would a more accurate concept of human beings be a dichotomy? Humans are just body and soul – whatever “soul” is. 4. When Adam and Eve sinned, their spirit died…they were just reduced to body and soul…they no longer had the image and likeness of God…there are several passages of Scripture written after Genesis 3 that suggest humans still retain God’s image – even though now through sin it is a tarnished image if you will – verses like Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9 5. Is it possible to speculate on what the resurrected body of Jesus Christ is like? Sure ! But that doesn’t prove anything – and doesn’t settle anything since it’s all based on conjecture. I read a fascinating book by an astrophysicist Beyond the Cosmos: The Tridimensionality Of God by Hugh Ross and in it the author gets into superstring theory and other dimensions. Maybe there’s something to it – maybe not. Observation and experimentation of the scientific method as far as I know so far are incapable of analyzing the extra-dimensions of superstring theory and for that matter - - anything in the spiritual realm – whatever that is. 6. I Corinthians 15 tells us things are going to change but it doesn’t give a scientific textbook version of it: But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[g] bear the image of the heavenly man. 50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Cool thread Nathan_Jr ! I'll check back later - busy on some other things now ~ ~ ~ ~ leaving some links for talking points: Wikipedia: dating the Bible Wikipedia: Biblical canon The Gospel Coalition - the biblical canon Got Questions Org: How and when was the canon of the Bible put together? Got Questions Org: what is the canon of Scripture?

Much earlier, the reason I mentioned the Wiki How article on calculating probability had to do with my fuzzy idea of “faith”. To commit to something, I have to be certain something will happen – as they say you can bet on it. (for extra credit I have a related topic below – Gambler’s Fallacy) Thinking of why I placed my faith in PFAL, it’s along the same lines as OldSkool and Chockfull mentioned – I was young and naïve. When I left TWI in ’86 I was having something like a double whammy crisis of faith – to have questions and doubts about PFAL and wierwille was to have questions and doubts about the Bible and God. That’s probably when my fascination with why I buy into something began. I recently read a really cool book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (see extra credit section ) – and like the title suggests the authors review evidence, witnesses and probabilities to present arguments and reasons for a phenomenal event. The analytical process in this book got me to see critical thinking as my ever-developing inner-brain-surgeon tasked to remove malignant growths but leave the healthy stuff intact. Physician, heal thyself. I got to thinking about many of the other phenomenal events mentioned in the Bible and realized there were usually witnesses. It wasn’t just one person claiming he heard God’s voice and got snow upon request as validation. Referring back to my probability post – how about we check out the Victaw Casino ( not to be confused with another casino ) I’m somewhat of a gambling man – what’s there to bet on? The stumbling dice table looks interesting. What’s the chances of God - on the qt – in other words, there’s no other witnesses – what’s the chances of God asking a pathological liar/thief/plagiarist/drunkard/sexual predator to teach the Word? Hmmmm, well Paul was a persecutor of Christians that’s pretty bad too – so yeah, at this point I guess it’s possible. Oh…wait…can I examine the dice? If it is indeed possible – then there should be other sides of the dice that have Biblical accounts of God secretly talking one-on-one to a scoundrel. I notice Paul’s conversion is NOT on the dice because there were witnesses on the road to Damascus (those who journeyed with Paul) and in the follow-up of Jesus sending Ananias to restore Paul’s sight…sorry… I hate to quibble over a little thing like witnesses…so… what else you got? Oh, this other stumbling dice game looks like fun. Victaw claims every time you roll the dice it comes up with the God-breathed PFAL class… …Again - can I examine the dice? I notice each side of the dice has some tidbit of plagiarized, dubious, and mangled material. This is really puzzling to me – because how do any combinations of the roll add up to the God-breathed PFAL class? It would be like claiming I could roll a 13 with one toss of real dice. Keep in mind the largest number I could roll is a 12 (each of the dice has numbers 1 through 6). Using probability calculations of my first post – or the extra credit hyperlink below on probability of rolling a 7 – the probability of any roll being the God-breathed PFAL class is 0 – it cannot happen. ~ ~ ~ ~ I recommend folks avoid the Victaw Casino. Remember the household of wierwille always wins. What does that mean? It does NOT mean that Victaw Casino will “win” every bet, just that return to player rates (RTPs see extra credit link below for online casino guide ) are set so that the household of wierwille will profit overall. While at first individual players may believe they’ve won something – household profits depend on loyal paying customers frequenting a thoroughly throughly absolutely completely exceedingly abundantly above redundantly rigged cult-casino because they get free Kool-Aid. What happens at Victaw Casino doesn’t stay in Victaw Casino. It can spread by offshoots, wierwille-proselytizers and even linger as mental baggage. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem with wierwille/PFAL/TWI/offshoots/ wierwille-proselytizers , may I recommend Grease Spot Café. ~ ~ ~ ~ Extra credit section The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the incorrect belief that, if a particular event occurs more frequently than normal during the past, it is less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa), when it has otherwise been established that the probability of such events does not depend on what has happened in the past. Such events, having the quality of historical independence, are referred to as statistically independent. The fallacy is commonly associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the expected number of sixes. The term "Monte Carlo fallacy" originates from the best known example of the phenomenon, which occurred in the Monte Carlo Casino in 1913. From: Wikipedia: Gambler’s fallacy Math Answers - what's the probability of rolling a 7 with two dice? online casinos - guide - the house always wins

now you owe me one for setting you up

What if we change the name of the thread to The Absent Beetlejuice and move it to doctrinal ...cue the Betamax tape – it’s showtime

I think you’ve about covered all the likely possibilities. For those who would like to try this out at home, you might find this Wiki How article helpful. FYI – if you use the hyperlink below – there are more links of resources…anyway here’s an excerpt: MATHEMATICS PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS How to Calculate Probability Co-authored by Mario Banuelos, PhD Last Updated: October 1, 2022 Chances are (pun intended) you've encountered probability by now, but what exactly is probability, and how do you calculate it? Probability is the likelihood of a specific event happening, like winning the lottery or rolling a 6 on a die. Finding probability is easy using the probability formula (the number of favorable outcomes divided by the total number of outcomes). In this article, we'll walk you through exactly how to use the probability formula step by step, plus show you some examples of the probability formula in action. 1 Choose an event with mutually exclusive outcomes. Probability can only be calculated when the event whose probability you’re calculating either happens or doesn’t happen. The event and its opposite both cannot occur at the same time. Rolling a 5 on a die, a certain horse winning a race, are examples of mutually exclusive events. Either a 5 is rolled or it isn’t; either the horse wins or it doesn’t. Example: It would be impossible to calculate the probability of an event phrased as: "Both a 5 and a 6 will come up on a single roll of a die." ~ ~ ~ ~ 2. Define all possible events and outcomes that can occur. Let’s say you're trying to find the likelihood of rolling a 3 on a 6-sided die. "Rolling a 3" is the event, and since we know that a 6-sided die can land any one of 6 numbers, the number of outcomes is 6. So, we know that in this case, there are 6 possible events and 1 outcome whose probability we’re interested in calculating. Here are 2 more examples to help you get oriented: Example 1: What is the likelihood of choosing a day that falls on the weekend when randomly picking a day of the week? "Choosing a day that falls on the weekend" is our event, and the number of outcomes is the total number of days in a week: 7. Example 2: A jar contains 4 blue marbles, 5 red marbles and 11 white marbles. If a marble is drawn from the jar at random, what is the probability that this marble is red? "Choosing a red marble" is our event, and the number of outcomes is the total number of marbles in the jar, 20. ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. Divide the number of events by the number of possible outcomes. This will give us the probability of a single event occurring. In the case of rolling a 3 on a die, the number of events is 1 (there’s only a single 3 on each die), and the number of outcomes is 6. You can also express this relationship as 1 ÷ 6, 1/6, 0.166, or 16.6%. Here's how you find the probability of our remaining examples: Example 1: What is the likelihood of choosing a day that falls on the weekend when randomly picking a day of the week? The number of events is 2 (since 2 days out of the week are weekends), and the number of outcomes is 7. The probability is 2 ÷ 7 = 2/7. You could also express this as 0.285 or 28.5%. Example 2: A jar contains 4 blue marbles, 5 red marbles and 11 white marbles. If a marble is drawn from the jar at random, what is the probability that this marble is red? The number of events is 5 (since there are 5 red marbles), and the number of outcomes is 20. The probability is 5 ÷ 20 = 1/4. You could also express this as 0.25 or 25%. ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. Add up all possible event likelihoods to make sure they equal 1. The likelihood of all possible events needs to add up to 1 or to 100%. If the likelihood of all possible events doesn't add up to 100%, you've most likely made a mistake because you've left out a possible event. Recheck your math to make sure you’re not omitting any possible outcomes. For example, the likelihood of rolling a 3 on a 6-sided die is 1/6. But the probability of rolling all five other numbers on a die is also 1/6. 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 6/6 , which = 100%. Note: If you had, for example, forgotten about the number 4 on the dice, adding up the probabilities would only reach 5/6 or 83%, indicating a problem. from: Wiki How: calculating probability

you're welcome...btw on another thread I mention the 4 most popular theories on inspiration here with one of my sources for that

Understood OldSkool I enjoyed that interview…and I agree with you on KJV vs other versions should be another thread in my previous post I was just bolstering the idea that we don’t need wierwille’s crystal-eyeball to peer into the otherwise unfathomable mind of God to tell us what He originally meant. I hold to the limited inspiration theory of how the Scriptures were inspired and believe textual criticism along with competent and honest hermeneutics are satisfactory for understanding the basic tenets of Christianity. I’ll leave the hidden messages and secret knowledge to the fans of Gnosticism.

Excellent post OldSkool ! Thanks for that link on the article Why Read the Bible in the King James Version? by Lana Vrz. Great article stating some solid reasons! I usually read NIV and NLT the most – but one of the reasons I often go back to KJV and NASB when doing deeper study is because some of my resources are keyed to KJV or NASB. And probably another reason is just out of an old habit. For 12 years in TWI, I read KJV. Even memorized a few of my favorite chapters. The upside of loving KJV is it comes in handy during a discussion – because it’s easy for me to retrieve a word, phrase, or passage from memory – even if I can’t remember the chapter and verse...and sometimes it's just the odd King Jimmy phraseology that makes it so easy to recall – then I just get on the internet and type in “lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” and I find that it’s in Matthew 28 - man, I’m a walking talking fuzzy memory concordance baby!

Something I’ve noticed with fundamentalism is their myopic assumption that the transcendence and immanence of Christ are two distinct experiences/attributes which are separated by time. We read in Acts Christ ascended into heaven…we read that He’s seated at the right hand of God. We read he will return someday…Yet Christ also said I am with you always and in Mark it says the Lord worked with them confirming their message…we read He is head of the Chruch. I think wierwille’s fundamentalist tendences put limits on God…From page 19 of Lifelines: Quotations of Victor Paul wierwille, the believer’s fear binds the omnipotence of God… ...he had the same damn attitude about Christ…I think wierwille promoted the absent Christ as a way to "eliminate the competition" – cuz you need wierwille’s skewed interpretation – “The Word” to take his place…I can almost hear he’s argument “Because logically class, Jesus Christ can’t be in two places at the same time.” Now addressing wierwille fans: At the risk of stating the obvious – no one is holding a gun to your head and making you stay inside wierwille’s cramped theological box…try thinking outside the box. Consider the transcendence and immanence of Christ. He might be absent from your thoughts, teachings, and decision-making but that does not cancel the reality that Christ is an ever-present Lord working with His Church.

And for further needed corrections…we are rescued from the dominion of sin…as my previous post shows – we are no longer under sin’s dominion. We have a new Lord…in Romans 8 we are challenged to walk in the lifestyle of Christ Jesus in order to put to death sinful behavior. Pursuant to that challenge means a constant vigil of our behavior. Any bad behavior that crops up - or is exposed - needs our immediate focus in order to deal with it properly (according to Rom. 8). It has come to my attention that some may misinterpret the following Philippians passage to mean we can procrastinate or kid ourselves into thinking we’re overcoming any bad behavior by NOT thinking about the bad behavior…read the passage again – I understand these noble attitudes should always be running in the background of our thoughts – like standing orders – that gives impetus to our “war” efforts – we are in a constant battle against sin - both within and without (that is what Romans 6 & 7 teach): 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4 NIV

Just for the sake of correction – sin is NOT dismissed in Romans 8 – rather Paul shows Christians how to put to death the sinful behavior in their lives: 8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. 12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8