A general topic on "what started it all..."

[Kyuuketsuki]

You asked, "If there was actually a method for assessing Scriptures and that method were consistent, would we not expect consistent interpretations/answers?" You said that you would, and I would too. One method consistently adhered to should give us consistent results. The reason we don't have consistent results is because there is not "a method" (singular) for interpretting Scriptures; there are several methods. Some are academically faulty, or logically invalid, or outright retarded, but that does nothing to the fact that they exist and people use them. (For example, the methods for assessing Scriptures used by the Jehovah's Witnesses were developed by people who admitted under oath in a court of law that they could not speak the ancient languages, could not read them, could not identify basic letters from their alphabets, and had no familiarity with their grammatical rules). There are several methodologies out there—and many of them are horribly faulty—which is why we have inconsistent interpretations.

In which case, since there is no consistency, it would be a more valid explanation to say that there is no consensus therefore no value in scriptural research (except, of course, an an historical source, a method for better understanding the way our ancestors thought and lived).

Kyu