Being good without god

[EGross]

Another atheist who hasn't read the Bible???

The prophets said the scribes lied...

These were from before there were scribes. But you are right, they all lied, including the so-called "prophets". I was just making a point that if one speaks of what god approves, then we can certainly bring evidence of what he did (supposedly) approve, which is always suspect.

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Catfish, As for reading the bible, I entrenched myself in the "Old Testament" for decades. You cannot see a single statement of a prophet, say Jeimiah 8:8 which I can only assume you are speaking of, when it does not speak of untrustworthyness. And if you are talking Christian texts, then he was speaking not of all scribes, but of the Tzadukim ones, who were part of the temple takeover during that time. But to make such a broad paintbrush stroke about all scribes? It's a bit to interpretive.

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By ignoring a later verse that calls the scribes liars, it is you who is the one cherrypicking. I know you need a reason to hate the Bible, but be logical in your interpretation of it...
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I've studied (mostly in Hebrew and the Aramaic targums) the biblical texts (not the Christian ones) a tad longer than you have (reading in those texts in English, while nice, is not really studying them). So painting a broad brush about picking cherries is a bit off.

When the non-Christian texts speak of the scribes, there is no "You cannot trust anything they say", and the context of the Christian text is speaking of the Sadducean Priests and scribes of that day, who were corrupt, not those who existed prior to Hillel the elder, or during the Period of Rabban Gamliel and later. So you have a narrow range of interpretation to work with.

As an aside, I was quoting from the 5 books of Moses, which would be considered outside of the scribes, unless you are a promoter of the conspiracy that the scribes changed it, in which case there is no case of a Jesus.

But I can live with that.