Give every unlikelihood to indicate God’s presence in Christianity
- Improbability of stars/planets (link to Cell to Singularity Essay)
- Improbability of Bible (pull from bible.md)
- Indian Menashe tribe is the lost tribe of Manasseh
The Bible shouldn’t exist
- The OT does NOT glorify the Hebrews very well compared to other ancient works, meaning they are absurdly humble or God had a lot of say in how it got written
- The OT should have been wiped out like so many other ancient texts (e.g., Rosetta Stone was necessary for Egyptian language to even make sense)
- The NT was an illlegal set of documents, independently written, all over ancient Rome
- It should have been wiped out with a lot of other things that don’t survive persecution
We must not only trust Scripture, but also that God has been faithful in preserving it:
– The original translations have been absurdly consistent across domains (all of them retaining the *spirit* even when the *words* varied slightly).
– The Old Testament has survived *multiple* fallen kingdoms, and was maintained by the most persecuted ethnic group on the planet.
– The New Testament was illegal in its first few centuries, and was maintained by the most persecuted *religious* group on the planet.
The Bible’s freak formation
indicate historical facts that make the Bible ridiculous
- yank from bible.md at least somewhat
Old Testament is the easiest to accept
- ancient manuscript by a reasonably powerful kingdom
- it is a weirdly self-deprecating book: there are a LOT of things that portray Israel in a VERY unpleasant light
- however, it is full of historical accuracies STILL being unveiled, without errors
- it has also been hyper-maintained more than so many other texts (e.g., attention to detail that Dead Sea Scrolls gave it)
- the Hebrews have NOT been pleasantly treated, but the people group persists to this day, and maintains that same scripture
New Testament is harder
- illegal runaway Hebrew cult in Rome: 3/4 of the time before Constantine in 313 it was illegal in some way
- HUNDREDS of copies surviving all over that Roman Empire
- the ONLY distinction is a dialect difference between Majority/Minority, and the differences are VERY minor (see if I can find the differences list)
- politically unimportant group believed in submitting to authorities (a certain deathwish when in an illegal religion), ended up growing so large that they contributed to Rome falling
- the early Christians all knew somehow that those letters were legitimate, and many times they had NO consultation with one another
Further, it has withstood time
- many empires and emperors have tried to destroy it, but never succeeded
- has been the best-selling book of all time, to the point that it eclipses everything else year-over-year
- MANY translations in MANY languages, almost all faithful to the original context
- the ideas represent similar across all languages, without severely weird permutations
even with its own institution failing, it still persists
- the Reformation tore Christianity apart, but the 66 still stand
in other words, it’s a non-negotiable historical anomaly
- at this point, we’re either very lucky to see it having survived, or there might be a Divine Hand guiding its formation