Well technically that's not quite right, there was no definitive (christian) compiled source material before King James bible and the translators translated directly from latin using the oldest texts they had available. Collecting all of the manuscripts and scrolls they studied before compilation was an incredible effort that I actually commend them for.
But yes, Faith at its core is a belief without evidence. By mere definition it is ignorance in the modern world. It's what turned me away from the church from a young age despite my catholic upbringing.
Actually that is 100% faith since faith requires the absence of evidence. No stronger faith that when you fully believe in some bullshit some assholes vomited up.
Which isn't exactly a large leap if you're a believer. If you believe God can do all the other stuff, divine inspiration isn't exactly near the top of "well that's just hard to believe"
Right, exactly. Not sure how it makes any sense to have those different translations and create one that way, but they just say he "works in mysterious ways."
You haven't read the bible until you have read it in the original Klingon:
1:1
1:2 DaH the tera' ghaHta' formless je empty.
HurghtaHghach ghaHta' Daq the surface vo' the deep.
joH'a' qa' ghaHta' hovering Dung the surface vo' the bIQmey.
1:3
1:4 joH'a' leghta' the wov, je leghta' vetlh 'oH ghaHta' QaQ.
joH'a' divided the wov vo' the HurghtaHghach.
Then there's also in a sibling desert religion how "40 figs" became "40 virgins" and nobody remembers when or how it happened... or even that the switch happened, at all.
God is all powerful, but not powerful enough to preserve his own inspired writings... or talk to anyone plainly because, ugh, why would they create language then stoop so low to use it... I mean they are so busy with those cosmological constants and quantum fields and all. How could they possibly have the time to act like sane reasonable people, or write down any of those ontological and undisputable fundamental building blocks of the universe.
God waited 14 billion years until humans appeared. And then he waited another 200,000 years until finally revealing the one and only true religion to them. And he gets really upset if you play with your wiener. Makes perfect sense.
Although god gets upset if you play with your weiner, it becomes okay after you tell your priest about it...but the forgiveness doesn't stick. You have to tell that priest after every time to be forgiven.
The first Qur'an was written within two years of Muhammads death. The Qur'an was standardized under caliph Uthman several years later, and all other copies were ordered to be burned or buried, or however one would respectfully retire a holy book. The closest English word for Qur'an is generally regarded to be 'recitations', as it was not originally meant to be a text. So, to maintain the integrity of the Suras (chapters, sort of), each one was required to be verified by multiple independent witnesses. Written Arabic was even elaborated to include information about how it was to be read (literally read aloud, not interpreted).
The relative speed with which this all occurred meant that some of these sources were indeed very close to Muhammad during his life. His wife A'i'sha, for example. Still, you can raise doubts by pointing out that the Suras may not have survived oral transmission fully in-tact, or that changes may have occurred over the 20+ year gap between Muhammads death and it's final transcription, and indeed many scholars do. I believe there is some degree of variation in manuscripts and sources.
But the general view among believers is that the Qur'an is the literal, unadulterated word of God, and we know that great care was taken to preserve it.
Not an expert, just took an Intro to the Qur'an course.
I recently started listening to a podcast called Data Over Dogma. They talk about some various similarities and differences in various scriptures/manuscripts. It's pretty neat.
From a historical lens, it is obviously not the same teachings Jesus taught or even James his successor or Paul who created the first layer of orthodoxy that won out eventually (eg, Christians don't have to be Jews).
But you can't argue that it isn't correct because it's not historically the same, they're just arguing that it is religiously true. That's like arguing that a 3-sided shape isn't a square because it's blue, you're right but not making the right argument.
The pattern I notice in fundamentalism is that you start with the assumption that your beliefs are "religiously true", then you interpret your scripture in a way that supports those beliefs. Whether the scripture is historically accurate seems to be incidental.