An Autopsy

It's been ten years since the fire went down
and left an ashy trail.

Eight since it flared in the heart of him.

Five since its final sigh.

He's spent the past four kissing painted lips, slick and ink-sharp masks,
and pressing poison fingertips into alabaster flesh.

Unresponsive, he lies
heart of granite open to the cold air.
Marbled eyes regarding a world
sterilized.

And without his ice cold pseudo-fire to warm him,
he has simply

:Gone Out.

The Pharisee

"day after day he seeks me out;
he seems eager to know my ways,
as if he were a person that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of his God.
he asks me for just decisions
and seems eager for God to come near him

but he has fallen asleep...

When they meet on sunday
he is the first to raise his hands in praise
when its time to participate in communion
he is the most devout of them all
he is the most solem,
he seems to think that his is serving his lord

but he does not even have the strength to stand...

he fasts
"look at how i struggle and sacrifice for you"
he says

but he has missed the point...

he is so far off the target
he is blinded by his own self righteousness
his own good deeds and ways
he is so blinded he doesn't even remember who i am

his fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking at others with wicked fists.
He cannot fast as he does today
and expect his voice to be heard on high.

Only when he learns
only when he looses the chains of injustice
and unties the cords of the yoke,
only when he to sets the oppressed free
and breaks every yoke?
only then...

When he shares his food with the hungry
and to provides the poor wanderer with shelter—
when he sees the naked, and gives them clothes,
and does not to turn away from his own flesh and blood
only then...

Only then my light will break forth like the dawn,
and my healing will quickly appear;

Only then will my righteousness go before him,

and the glory of the LORD will be his rear guard.

Then he will call, and the LORD will answer;
he will cry for help, and I will say: "Here am I.
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

only if he spends himself on behalf of the hungry
and satisfies the needs of the oppressed,
then his light will rise in the darkness,
and his night will become like the noonday.

The LORD will guide him always;
I will satisfy his needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen him
He will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
he will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
The mouth of the LORD has spoken!"

The Pharisee that i am talking about is really me. I am the one who fasts, and raises his hand in "worship". I am the one who likes looking good. But i am dead on the inside. My stench has reached to the heavens, and God has called me out on it. Its time to change.

Read Isaiah 58.

Biblical Validity

The New Testament was written 2000 years ago and the Old testament around 2500-3000 years ago, due to this fact, have you ever wondered how we can possibly trust what we currently have written, as what had been written? Or have you ever come across a person who may think with this mindset and find yourself speachless? Well, then...I've got the info you've been looking for :)

I'll begin with the evidence.
Obviously the first thing we need is actual documents/manuscripts of the work from the past, if we are going to argue that the bible was indeed written 2000+ years ago.

Pretty Self-Explanatory. Bible vs. Other Ancient Manuscripts.

What is this table showing us?
Its showing us 10 different authors/works and the year+ the number of the ancient manuscripts we have of each. The first 8 are ancient writings whose validity (even in the face of contradictions) are not challenged by any historian (with exception to Caesar). These manuscripts are not disputed because we have 5+ manuscripts dating within 1000 years of the writing (roundabout). So, an ancient author's work is generally considered valid if there are 5+ remaining manuscripts and the manuscripts are written within 1000 years of their actual writing. (i hope you see where i'm going)
Within these standard qualifications, the Bible not only qualifies, it exceeds the nearest competitor 10 fold. 10 FOLD!

Well ok, Alec, so its got a lot of manuscripts, but they can't all be without legends that entered into the writings after the original writing or it certainly can't be perfectly written w/o mistakes . I'll answer both these in turn.
Legends/Myths?
100 years. 100 years is how long our table there says it was before we got copies of the originals. (this table is actually a bit off, its now closer to 50 years...) Let me introduce another table.

Note that the nearer line in NT represents the actual copies and the farther line represents the Early Church writings.

This new table shows us how many early church manuscripts we have, the things that the church leaders wrote that weren't worthy of canonization. These 24,000 (4800x's the standard) manuscripts all fit the current biblical writings. Meaning the things writtin about jesus were all backed up by the early church fathers, what they have written fits the themes/ideas and beliefs expressed by the Gospels we have today. This therefore means that the Stories of Christ were not myth written in after the fact, they were believed by the earliest church, before myth could have existed.

w/o Mistakes?
The Old Testament copying process stands as the error-proof in it of itself. A priest wishing to copy an Old testament book (the Tanakh) had the following ritual.
1. Cleanse yourself to the upmost.
2. Begin Writing the book exactly as is in the original (the spacing of the words, the size of the words, the length of the words, EVERYTHING).
3. Once the priest came to a name for God(or YHWH itself) he had to go cleanse himself again
4. Then write the word and continune.
If all this was followed to PERFECTION than the writing was kept. However, if there's was any differences between the two documents, then the entire copy was thrown out. and the priest started over. Saying that the current version of the Old Testament could possibly err in any way, would be lunacy.

The New Testament copying process was not nearly as rigorous, but they still did a fantastic job. All of the 6,000+ manuscripts (again the table is outdated a little bit) are cross-checked against eachother. While we don't have the original, by cross checking each copy versus one another we can find the true writing.
IE. Lets use 4 different examples of my own writing.
Original: Moe's is far better than Qdoba, far better.
Copy #1: Moe's is far b_tter than Qdoba, far better.
Copy #2: Moe's is far be_ter than Qdoba, far better.
Copy #3: Moe's is far bet_er than Qdoba, far better.

Using just the three copies we can deduce that the sentence should read "Moe's is far better than Qdoba, far better". So using this strategy the New Testament has been found to be 99.9...% accurate. (i don't remember exactly to what extent they give the nine's). Also, keep in mind that my example is far more drastic than any actual mistakes within the NT, they arenever that drastic.


I think its safe to say in light of all this, there is only two conclusions you can come to with Biblical Validity.
1. The Old and New Testament we have today clearly fit and exceed the qualifications for being considered valid and as such are what was written from 48-95 a.d.
2. Or, Not a single piece of ancient history is reliable enough to be considered true, and most therefore be thrown out.