Posted by practicus [practicus] on November 30, 1999 at 04:36:37 {JEfy6n1mcI0qEQSQWE66XLrxSb9K/Q}:
In Reply to: **To Practicus, Friend, JWs posted by WW on November 29, 1999 at 20:11:06:
Not really. A "defense" is simply an answer, a response, "apologia" in Greek. A defense does not carry any obligation to convince everybody. I can certainly make a "defense" for the hope I have in Christ. It does not thereby obligate me to make a believer out of you. Nor does your rejection of my "defense" make it any less a defense.
Following your reasoning for calling the Bible pagan-influenced, why begin with 42 C.E. (AD)? Why not go way back to 1513 B.C.E. when the Torah was written and used terms such as el and baal for God, since those terms were also names of pagan deities?
Actually, I prefer an alternative viewpoint:the pagans were truth-influenced. All mankind once knew the truth after the Flood, but diluted and compromised it. By the time of Babel, when mankind spread throughout the earth, some held fast to the truth, others contaminated it. Thus, the "pagans" passed on to their descendants truth in an adulterated form. Search under all the nonsense, and a kernel of reality emerges here and there.