re reason vs revelation in article apr athos rutgers edu trajan stephen mcintyre writes in article apr athos rutgers edu writes i can only reply with what it says in timothy i m not here to discount parts of the bible rather i m here only to discount the notion of revelation the author of timothy told what he thought was the truth based on his belief in god his faith in jesus as the resurrected son and his readings of the old testament but again what had been revealed to him was based on at best second hand information given by friends and authors who may not have given the whole truth or who may have exaggerated a bit first of all the original poster misquoted the reference is from tim the author was paul and his revelations were anything but at best second hand and is came about that as saul journeyed he was approaching damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him saul saul why are you persecuting me and he said who art thou lord and he said i am jesus whom you are persecuting acts nas paul received revelation directly from the risen jesus pretty cool eh he became closely involved with the early church the leaders of which were followers of jesus throughout his ministry on earth now you may say the holy spirit revealed these things unto him and we could go into that argument but you d be hard pressed to convince me that the holy spirit exists i agree i don t believe anyone but the spirit would be able to convince you the spirit exists please don t complain about this being circular i know it is but really can anything of the natural world explain the supernatural this is why revelation is necessary to the authors of the bible additionally what he has written is again second hand info if it were given by the spirit and still carries the chance it is not true the spirit is part of god how much closer to the source can you get the greek in timothy which is sometimes translated as inspired by god literally means god breathed in other words god spoke the actual words into the scriptures many theologians and bible scholars dr james boice is one that i can remember off hand get quite annoyed by the dryness and incompleteness of inspired by god the only way you would be able to escape this notion of second hand info is to have had the entire bible written by god himself and to tell the truth i ve studied the bible extensively and have yet to hear of scholars who have put forth objective evidence showing god as the first author of this collection of books that s what the verse taken from timothy was all about the continuity of a book written over a span of years by more than authors from all walks of life is a testimony to the single authorship of god and as for reason read what it says in corinthians about human wisdom basically it says that human wisdom is useless when compared with what god has written for our learning if you knew of jesus as well as you know the bible you d realize he reasoned out the law and the prophets for the common man what source to you claim to have discovered which has information of superior historicity to the bible certainly not josephus writings or the writings of the gnostics which were third century at the earliest and though some claim jesus was he was human with all of the human wisdom the apostle paul set out to criticize yet would you not embrace the idea that jesus was wise jesus was fully god as well that s why i d assert that he is wise i realise that you may not accept the authority of the bible this is unfortunate to say the least because there is no other way of learning about god and christ and god s purpose with the earth than reading the bible and searching out its truth for yourself for your information i was raised without any knowledge of god by the time some of the faithful came to show me the word and share with me its truth i was living happily and morally without acknowledging the existence of a supreme being i have though read the bible several times over in its entirety and have studied it thoroughly it contains truth in it and i consider jesus to be one of the most moral of human beings to have lived in fact i darn near idolize the guy but there s no rational reason for me to except god s existence please rethink this last paragraph if there is no god which seems to be your current belief then jesus was either a liar or a complete nut because not only did he assert that god exists but he claimed to be god himself regards to c s lewis how then could you have the least bit of respect for jesus in conclusion be careful about logically unfounded hypotheses based on gut feelings about the text and other scholars unsubstantiated claims the bible pleads that we take it in its entirety or throw the whole book out about your reading of the bible not only does the spirit inspire the writers but he guides the reader as well we cannot understand it in the least without the spirit s guidance for to us god revealed them through the spirit for the spirit searches all things even the depths of god cor nas peace and may god guide us in wisdom carter c page of happiness the crown and chiefest part is wisdom a carpenter s apprentice and to hold god in awe this is the law that cpage seas upenn edu seeing the stricken heart of pride brought down we learn when we are old adapted from sophocles other theologians get quite annoyed at the misleadingess of god breathed it s true that the greek word has as its roots god and breath however etymology doesn t necessarily tell you what a word means otherwise goodbye would be a religious expression since it comes from god be with ye you have to look at how the word was actually used in this case the word is used for wisdom or dreams that come from god but god breathed is an overtranslation clh
