Check your assumptions

[deacon blues]

I go on Quora sometimes. Has anyone else ever checked it out? I sometimes find some interesting discussions. I was discussing an idea with a feller, and he insisted that the Old Testament would not have survived if its authors hadn't known what they were talking about. It sounded a bit like bible inerrancy. It reminded me that we all need to check and double check our assumptions. Ayn Rand and Joseph Smith both seemed to understand this and yet both of them still made big mistakes, at least as I see it, but I could be wrong. Thoughts?

[Hagoth]

...he insisted that the Old Testament would not have survived if its authors hadn't known what they were talking about...

Did you ask him if that applies equally to The Quran, The Bhagivad Gita, and Dianetics?

[Reuben]

I'm all for checking assumptions.

I'm also all for accepting the difficulty of someone else pointing out assumptions in those frequent cases where the assumptions are implicit and therefore invisible to us.

[alas]

...he insisted that the Old Testament would not have survived if its authors hadn't known what they were talking about...

Did you ask him if that applies equally to The Quran, The Bhagivad Gita, and Dianetics?

When you look past just the Bible, then you have to come up with a different explanation for literature surviving other than Truth, with a capital T. A more accurate statement would be, “the Bible would not have survived if it protectors had not considered it important.” It was not the authors who caused the Bible to survive, but the ancient priests who selected which books/scrolls to copy, which to make into “canonized scripture”. These were decisions of men who came long after the “prophet” who wrote the works. So, what made these men consider one scroll written by someone claiming to be a prophet more important than another scroll written by someone else claiming to be a prophet? One could research the canonization of the separate book that went into the Bible. Why did they canonize the book of Danial and not the book of Judith? One went into the Bible and the other went into the apocrypha? This is a much bigger question than just did the authors of the Bible know what they were talking about.

I would suggest that it was more emotional appeal that caused some books to be kept, copied, canonized. But then I am more analytical than emotional. I don’t think anything that makes me feel good is True. Like the orange man in the White House thinks it is true that he won the election because that would make him feel good, while the other reality makes him feel bad. So he picks what to believe by what feels good. Most people do this to a certain extent, some much more than others. So, if a story about being God’s chosen people makes people feel good, then it must be true, therefore “Father Abraham” is our ancestor and God loves us more than the wicked people one nation over. The fact that three major religions who hate each other all claim this same arrogant stupidity kind of proves my point.

[Hagoth]

This is a much bigger question than just did the authors of the Bible know what they were talking about.

If you are a believer in science, then whoever wrote Genesis absolutely and obviously did NOT know what they were talking about.

[Just This Guy]

I will visit Quora once in a while. I make a point to avoid religion and politics threads. Those are wastes of my time and effort there.

I sometimes find some interesting discussions. I was discussing an idea with a feller, and he insisted that the Old Testament would not have survived if its authors hadn't known what they were talking about.

So by that logic, any story that has survived that long has to be true? Does that include The Odyssey and the Iliad? Were they both based on historical fact witnessed by the author? How about the Epic of Gilgamesh? That is over twice as old as the NT. It dates to 2,500-2,700 BC. Is that a factual account where the author knew what he was talking about?

[deacon blues]

Here's where I left it. I decided not to be confrontational, but I couldn't believe the guy didn't see his own logical fallacy. I'm Saxy Ricks

Gary Turner--MA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences (Physical), University of Cambridge (Graduated 1979)
No, God is never unrighteous.
This verse shows that God can be shrewd, clever, astute, cunning and crafty - but what God does is always good and right!

Saxy Ricks
Sun
It’s an adequate answer as far as it goes, but it seems to presume the infallibility of the Bible. It should address the question: “Did the ancient Bible writers really know what they were talking about?” Or even better: “How do we know the ancient Bible writers knew what they were talking about?”
Gary Turner

Mon
If they hadn't known what they were talking about, then their writings would not have survived - either at the time or down through the centuries!

Saxy Ricks
Mon
I think we both should double check our assumptions. Have a nice day and God bless us every one.