The Bible, True or False?

There are some that will insist that we must accept the Bible as 100% correct in order to be saved. If one error is found then the entire manuscript must be scrapped, after all, God can’t make mistakes – right? While there are some basic truths about the Bible, my concern is pastors would like to have their congregations believe that the Bible we hold in our hands today and the scrolls that Jesus read from in his day are one and the same. After much prayer and deliberation, I don’t think that’s the case, I don’t think everything is cut and dried as some would have us believe.

I believe in the traditional teachings that Jesus was the “Word Incarnate” and the law fulfilled. However, after doing some research, the Jews spoke Aramaic and the first gospel account of the New Testament would have been Luke written in Greek around 63 AD (www.biblestudytools.com). The early writers drew from an Aramaic oral tradition and some scholars suggest translation problems by these early writers who may have not been fluent in both languages.

While Jesus did quote from scriptures, what we actually have is a New Testament account of Jesus quoting from the Old. Thus, a paradox occurs as Jesus couldn’t have quoted from the New as these weren’t in existence at the time he was alive; yet scholars tend to universally extend infallibility to all of scripture both New and Old alike.

Finally, a point of illustration. If one were to compare the table of contents of the New American Bible Revised, regarded as the Catholic Bible, to an NIV version regarded as the Protestant Bible, you would find markedly different books. Now comes the 64 million dollar question, which one would lead me to Jesus? I can only pray to God that they both would. If I were to take the hard line approach, one would be wrong and the other canon correct. The conclusion that I arrived at is that the Bible is true enough to believe. Remember that all wisdom come not from our own understanding but from God. I sometimes wonder of those that take the hard line approach have discounted the Spirit at work in conjunction with reading the Bible.

Prison Time

Yes, unfortunately I’ve done some time in the “big house” after my divorce. While that’s another story, I’ve been around people who’ve gone through a divorce and to say that they seem angry, sad and hostile at times makes working with them uncomfortable; let’s just say some people do more “crazy time” after a divorce than others. (lol). But, this blog is not about my divorce nor do I wish do go into great deal about my experience in prison. While the experience wasn’t really as bad the time could have been; this period was both emotionally and spiritually retching.

While as the reader can see, I could write two other separate blogs with regards to the issues of divorce and prison, but I’m not here to write about those experiences, I’m here to blog against the Trinity. So with that said; briefly, as one walks through the doors of the cell block there are cells lined against three walls right, back, left two stories high with picnic tables in the open area on the first floor. This is where I was wondering about when I looked down on one of the picnic tables and found the magazine: “Should You Believe in the Trinity?”.

After reading through this publication, my heart sunk and I had a feeling in my gut like someone sucker punched me in the stomach. My lingering suspicions had just been confirmed. For the readers reference, I included a picture of the copy. While I will talk about this publication briefly in another post, I encourage readers to get their own copy by contacting the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Now please, here comes the following disclaimer. I am not a Jehovah’s Witness, nor do I subscribe to every teaching. There are about a million issues that I could start another blog about; particularly with having to follow every teaching of organized religion, (I hope to discuss this issue briefly in also in a later post), I’m here to blog against Trinity Doctrine.

A Point to Rethink

After my first post, I prayerfully rethought some points. While I’ve never been to seminary school and I don’t know the Bible “chapter and verse” like I should, not musically gifted, my writing skills are mundane; but I would like to talk a little about my background. I’ve attended and graduated from a private Catholic high school, Andrean High School situated in Merrillville, IN just across from Gary. I met my girlfriend soon to be my wife at Purdue who didn’t feel comfortable converting to Catholicism as she was Independent Christian (Baptist). {A rather humorous story as my ex-wife always objected to the “Baptist” label and I would chime in with the joke “Baby, if you got the dunkin’ pool behind the alter…you’re Baptist” (LOL). } A friend of hers introduced us to the Lutheran church, and we were both sold on the church and the pastor. For those readers who’ve never been in a Lutheran Church, the interior, service and the garb pastor’s wear one might be confused and think that they were in a Catholic Church. I attended church and Sunday school regularly with my ex-wife for the next 15+ years. Most of my writing will draw on this religious training, and some from work experience.

In a past life, I used to work for a company that was QS 9000 Certified. As God would have it, I was one of the companies auditors. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these types of systems; they are paper heavy and document intensive. These systems have Standards, Work Instructions, and Procedures all printed in a special format, organized in binders and are auditable documents. My job as auditor was I would be assigned certain block, for example Quality issues would be under chapter 5 and the Work Instructions to calibrate the gauges would be 5.1, Control Plans 5.2; different departments had other chapter numbers as Production 6, Sales 7, Scheduling 4 for example. The audits were broken into blocks as I might be assigned to audit the calibration of gauges for the quality department which might be sections 5.1.a through 5.1.h. Please bear in mind that a through h is seven letters, so there were at least seven Work Instructions involved, and one had to also back track the associated Procedures and Standards mentioned as to cross reference each document to check that they were correct. I even had to check the revision number against the master ledger to see that the binders have been updated. Basically my job consisted that I would have to read through all this documentation, then go out and “interview” (audit) people to find out if they were doing their job correctly.

The Average Joe

Right now you may be wondering what my qualifications are to take on such a task. I’m glad to tell you that while I’ve never been to seminary school, like the rest of Christianity, have received the Spirit at Baptism. I’ll be writing the following exploits through the angle of the “average Joe”, as I’ll try not to use pumped up theological terms and write in simple everyday language. Therein lies the rub, as the teachers of the law marveled at who is this Jesus as he had no rabbinical training? Later in Acts, they also likewise marveled at the wisdom of the Apostles (then they realized that the Apostles had been with Jesus.) All this time I’ve been a Christian, I’ve finally realized that Jesus was about the people, wanted to reach them, use parables and everyday language to illustrate points. I plan to take a no holds barred honest historical look at the presiding councils. I’ll try to use outlines and definitions to convey important points, then have a discussion with regards to each point.

My First Day Blogging

Day of Blog: Friday, May 2nd

Hello to all. For those that don’t know me, my name is Thomas William Morton or Tom will be fine. After much soul searching and reflection, I decided to start this blog as an open and frank discussion as whether Trinity Doctrine is true. I’ll have to confess, that this blog (author) is biased; and most of my writing is intended as a case against the Trinity, but if you feel otherwise, then please let’s have an open, frank, respectful discussion as you can reach me by email twmorton3@gmail.com and I will respond.