JT, I appreciate your input and the fact that you do not resort to circular reasoning or try to obscure the debate by questioning my faith or try to bombard this thread with non sequiturs.
The problem I have with this is that the Pope (I forget which one off the top of my head) commissions Jerome to re-translate the Bible and to come up with the official Latin version. Some works were translated from Hebrew, some from Old Latin and some from Greek, so already you're working off imperfect "originals." (And this assumes also that some original God-inspired texts, letters, etc. were not lost.) That the translation is "God inspried" seems dubious because Jerome was doing the job at the behest of the Pope, not God. I'm not saying Jerome acted in any way other than most sincerely. But, we're still talking about a Church that - especially in the early centuries - was as much a political body as it was a religious one. It seems much more honest to say, "This is our best stab at authenticity, but just to make sure no one questions Church authority we're going to put God's seal of approval on this. Why didn't he provide such inspiration 400 years ago? Next question. Ask me that again and you're excommunicated."
(Quick aside: Recently Rome lamented that services in English were slightly off from the "original" Latin. Imagine that: things lose a little in translation. I find this amusing since Latin was not the original.)
And that every modern translation of every version of Christianity is said to be "God inspired" should give one pause. The various Orthodox churches have their set of books, as do Catholics and Protestants. How can they all be right if they are (to varying degrees) different? Did God inspire them all to come up with different versions of the Bible? Is only one version of Christianity correct?
And what about the allegories? Surely such stories as that of the Ark and of Jonah did not actually happen. That they are allegories does not diminish the message, but they certainly aren't literal.
At the end of the day, I just want people who take a narrow, literal interpretation of the Bible to think for a minute. There might just be a little more to the Bible that what is expressed in 2008 backwoods Alabama. Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christanity as it's official religion in the year 300. Two of the apostles preached there shortly after the death of Jesus. If anything, it sounds like the Armenian Orthodox Church may be the most authentic. (One of my friends is Armenian and has given me a couple of fascinating books on Armenian history. Their interpretation of Christ is a little different.)
At any rate, Christianity in 1st century Armenia is different from Christianity in 4th century Constantinople, which is different from the 5th century Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which is different from 16th century Christianity in Mexico, which is different from modern Vietnamese and Korean interpretations of Christianity. What else can I say? It's different.
Religion does not occur in a vacuum; it is tied into the local culture. Christianity was born in the Levant, was exported to Rome, gained permanence in Greece (Byzantium), was reformed in Germany, was counter-reformed in places like Spain, and adapted to local customs in places like Mexico and other corners of the globe. For lack of a better word, Christianity, like all religions evolves. Evolution is change. God doesn't change, but man's attempt to understand God obviously does.
[I'll be on the road for a couple of days. Talk to you guys later.]
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