Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by james d on December 8, 2011 at 9:31am

Inerrancy: the Biblical doctrine that says that the Scripture, in the autographs (originals), when interpreted correctly, is true in all that it teaches and upon which it touches.

as soon as he states this, he lost all credibility! there are NO original manuscripts left to compare ANY translation in any of the languages used in the bible, some of which are no longer in existence. IF you are claiming any part of the bible to be 100% true, then somehow you must prove that the original texts are correct. any discussion after that point is just blah blah blah!! imho :D

To make a long story short, I began to adopt a view that I call “reasoned inerrancy.” “Reasoned inerrancy” is a definition of inerrancy that recognizes that the Scriptures must be interpreted according to the rules of interpretation governed by genre, historical accommodations, context, argument, and purpose. In other words, the modernistic need for things to be technically precise with regard to Scripture, ironically held by both ultra-conservatives and skeptics who seek to pick apart the Bible, is just that—a modern need that produces a warped apologetic and a faulty hermeneutic.

the problem with this is as follows... there are NO footnotes from god saying which parts of his word is to be taken literally, which are metaphor, and which are mere allegories and which are just stories. theologians and scholars for thousands of years have all claimed to "know" what god really meant by a verse or a section of text, but, that means our theology is man-made and thus NOT god's word, but a man's idea of what it means! that is why there are so many sects in christianity and why they all think their revelation of the bible is the ONLY way to interpret it. IF the bible is truly a divinely inspired book, then i should be able to read it and KNOW the god who wrote it and understand his plan for my salvation. the bible is not very good at enabling anyone to 'find' the god therein, but MAN must point us to the revelation that they want us to see of this god.

the problem with this topic is that christians all believe that the jesus and god they worship is the ONLY one that is right to a large extent and the reason for the 10's of thousands of denominations all saying the other ones are wrong! IF the bible is 100% accurate as some claim, while others claim the book is mostly metaphorical and NOT to be taken literally at all, and yet others seem to think they can tell which passages fit which description of literal truth and which are mere allegories, it is understandable to think that there is no way the bible can be true to any extent at all. IF the bible revealed ONE message and ONE god, it would be a consistent message with a consistent revelation of the all-knowing god contained therein, not the divisive 'my god is true' model we see around the world today!

i will add more thoughts later if anyone is interested :D

cheers

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on December 8, 2011 at 9:56am

as soon as he states this, he lost all credibility! there are NO original manuscripts left to compare ANY translation in any of the languages used in the bible, some of which are no longer in existence. IF you are claiming any part of the bible to be 100% true, then somehow you must prove that the original texts are correct. any discussion after that point is just blah blah blah!! imho :D

@ James - Yeah! Say it loud, say it proud. lol  I am tired of all the bull!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bobby Havicon on December 8, 2011 at 10:41am

Can it be said that contradictory interpretations by various denominations are due to the fallenness of human reason? While there are some that are completely wrong, even through there are various denominations, aren't they, as a whole, saying very consistently that Jesus Christ is God and came to atone for sin? Aren't there those who have picked up the Bible and read it and came to the conclusion that Christ is God and repented of their sins and put their trust in his atoning sacrifice on the cross?

Concerning not having the originals, doesn't the "science" of textual criticism lead us to having a certain knowledge that what we do have in our thousands of copies is reliable regarding their doctrinal content?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 8, 2011 at 11:04am

Can it be said that contradictory interpretations by various denominations are due to the fallenness of human reason?

That's an ad-hoc response. I can also say that the contradictory interpretations by various denominations are due to the fact that each of the books were authored by mischievous elves. What we want to know is if there's any reason to think that either of these two explanations are true. The trouble with your supposition is that not only do we have no reason to think that it's true, the explanation itself is derived from the very book whose reliability as a witness is under the microscope.

While there are some that are completely wrong, even through there are various denominations, aren't they, as a whole, saying very consistently that Jesus Christ is God and came to atone for sin?

Maybe. But even if they were, none of them can agree on what Jesus said, what Jesus meant when he said what he said, how the atonement makes logical and ethical sense, and how we are to attain salvation. You might as well point back to the mischievous elf theory I posited above and say "Doesn't the fact that people agree that it was elves and that they did what they did out of their mischievous nature, even while those people disagree on the details, mean that the mischievous elf theory is accurate??"

Aren't there those who have picked up the Bible and read it and came to the conclusion that Christ is God and repented of their sins and put their trust in his atoning sacrifice on the cross?

Sure there are. But so what? What does it tell us about the truth of the Bible's contents that some people have read it and come to this conclusion? Are we told the same thing about the Koran's contents that people have read it and come to a mutually exclusive conclusion?

Concerning not having the originals, doesn't the "science" of textual criticism lead us to having a certain knowledge that what we do have in our thousands of copies is reliable regarding their doctrinal content?

No one taking this position has read and taken seriously the conclusions of textual criticism. While it is of course true that the vast majority of the differences in the New Testament (more differences than there are words in the entire New Testament mind you!) are errors that make no difference doctrinally, there are numerous errors that do call to question doctrine. And then, leaving aside the question of scribal/copyist errors, interpolations, and redactions in the text, there's still the fact that the differences in the narrative itself undermines the reliability of the text as a guide to what Jesus is likely to have said and done, thereby undermining doctrinal reliability. Besides, historical Jesus studies, to the extent that HJ studies are founded on a reliable methodology, have shown that Jesus is unlikely to have said and done many of the things he is portrayed in the Gospels as having done and said. The majority view among scholars still seems to be, and has been for a hundred years, that Jesus was just another failed apocalyptic prophet, one among many at the time. And this is, of course, again, if the HJ methodology is reliable. For, if not, he may never have existed at all. And serious scholars question whether it is reliable. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on December 8, 2011 at 11:04am

Actually no, the Jesus Christ is God thing is a very late invention. It only became the official truth of Christian orthodox Christology per decree in the 4th century when Arius was declared a heretic and chased out of the country after which the ones and onlies true-ish Christians burned his writings and what not.

It was also in the fourth century that the list of books that made the Bible and those that were kept out began to resemble what the Bible looks like now.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve on December 9, 2011 at 3:59pm

That stuff might all be true if the Bible weren't "god's word". If we see at as a purely man-made anthology, then we can engage in interpretation and consider things like historical context.

But for something written or inspired by the almighty creator of the universe that does not work. Why would his book and ideas be dependent in historical context?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Butler on December 8, 2011 at 10:59am

Well I just felt as though the author spent a lot of time and energy trying to defend a indefensible position he makes the standard excuses for the discrepancy and repeating of stories its really a long winded fingers in the ears lalalalalalallalal I cant hear you and I don't care what you say argument.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 8, 2011 at 11:23am

Anyway, these are hardly "new thoughts" on inerrancy. People have held this nonsense position for quite a while. And it is nonsense. When insisting that each of the authors of the books preserve something of what happened then we should apparently think that to combine the books, mashing them together to form a meta-gospel, would produce the best text. But that's absurd. Having done so, and upon stepping back to survey your handiwork, you'll find that you have created a book that exists no where in the New Testament! Here's what the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman has to say on this brand of inerrancy:

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times “before the cock crows twice.” In Matthew’s Gospel he tells him that it will be “before the cock crows.” Well, which is it—before the cock crows once or twice? When I was in college I purchased a book that was intent on reconciling differences of this kind. It was called The Life of Christ in Stereo. The author, Johnston Cheney, took the four Gospel accounts and wove them together into one big mega-Gospel, to show what the real Gospel was like. For the inconsistency in the account of the denials of Peter, the author had a very clever solution: Peter actually denied Jesus six times, three times before the cock crowed and three more times before it crowed twice. This can also explain why Peter denies Jesus to more than three different people (or groups of people) in the various accounts. But here again, in order to resolve the tension between the Gospels the interpreter has to write his own Gospel, which is unlike any of the Gospels found in the New Testament. And isn’t it a bit absurd to say that, in effect, only “my” Gospel—the one I create from parts of the four in the New Testament—is the right one, and that the others are only partially right?

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them). New York: Harper Collins, 2009. pp 7-8

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bobby Havicon on December 8, 2011 at 11:54am

Well, I don't think he's saying to "mash" them together into one meta-gospel like the author Ehrman is referring to did with his absurd result of six denials. Actually, I believe that's the view he had early on and later rejected. He's saying that each author has a purpose and God is speaking through them even though their humanness/style comes through. For example, one writer may be more specific in identifying precisely before which crow will Peter have denied Christ three times, whereas the author may just be more generic because a rooster crows multiple times in the morning, and he just means that before the rooster completes his cycle of morning crows, Peter will have denied Christ three times.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 8, 2011 at 12:12pm

I would disagree. Take his example of his telling staff at "Credo House": “This year has been a tremendous year at Credo House. The place is full of young people hanging out, playing pool, and having Saint Nicholas’ (double shot expresso, red velvet, with a hint of mint). Just today, I was telling a young couple about how to verify whether or not historical events of the past actually took place then I applied that to the resurrection of Christ. I could see in their eyes the excitement and intrigue that our faith is really true! I am now going to try to get people to stand behind this ministry.”

If this comparison to the bible makes any sense at all then we must conclude that while what his sister says to someone about the meeting and what the barrista tells to someone else about the meeting are both individually true, that taking both of the accounts together creates an account of the speech that is better still.

So if the Gospel of "Luke" is true in the way this guy's sister's account of the meeting is true, and the Gospel of "Matthew" is true in the way that the barrista's account of the meeting is true, then mashing Luke and Matthew together is more true in the same way mashing the sister's and the barrista's accounts together is.

The greater problem, however, is with the comparison itself. We're able to verify that the sister's account is an accurate account of what happened. We know she was an eyewitness. Her account is contemporaneous with the events. The same is true for the barrista. We can check their accounts against multiple other independent accounts of the meeting. The Gospels, on the other hand, are not the result of eye witness accounts, they are not contemporaneous with the events they contain, they do not admit of the kind of verification that the sister's and the barrista's do.

You talk about "[O]ne writer may be more specific in identifying precisely before which crow will Peter have denied Christ three times..." But the fact remains, Matt, Luke, and John say before the cock crowed once, and Mark says before the cock crows twice. Jesus didn't say both of these things. Not according to the Gospels.

You've done exactly what Ehrman is talking about. You've created your own Gospels. You've created a narrative of what happened that can't be found in any of the Gospels.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bobby Havicon on December 8, 2011 at 12:24pm

Well, they don't specifically say "once;" therefore, they could be referring to a generic morning crowing of the rooster that usually contains multiple crows.

When the gospels were written, weren't there people still living who were alleged eyewitnesses of the purported events described in the gospels such that if they weren't true such that many adherents would have quickly realized the falsity of the claims and would not, in many cases, have been willing to be persecuted for converting to Christianity?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 8, 2011 at 2:22pm

You're talking about what could be the case. Great. But why is there any reason to ignore the straightforward reading and go chasing your tail trying to stick to inerrancy? Isn't your goal to believe in likely true propositions rather than beginning with the inerrancy claim and then coming up with rationalizations for the counter evidence?

The answer to your question is, no. We have absolutely no reason to think that. Why? 

First, while the events in the Gospels span the time somewhere between (the indefinite character of the statement is owing to the fact that the Gospels contradict themselves on just when Jesus was born) the last 5 years BCE to the first 3 years or so CE up to maybe 33 CE, the earliest Gosepl, "Mark", can be reasonably dated no earlier than 65-70 and the last Gospel, John, maybe as late as 110 but no earlier, it would seem, than 90 CE. Matthew and Luke date to perhaps 85 CE. The average lifespan seems to have been about 40 years or so back then. So even if there were eyewitnesses to events it's only Mark's Gospel that could perhaps have based the account on them, reasonably. But examination of the text by scholars finds them to have been authored by educated Greek speaking persons living somewhere around the Mediterranean, perhaps in Asian Minor (modern Turkey). And it's not as if, back then, you could easily just travel to Jerusalem or Galilee and go knocking on doors to find these eyewitnesses. And that's if they were still around. The Gospels themselves tell us that many of them went off to go and found churches around the Mediterranean or ran off to hide. Worse is that Matthew and Luke's Gospel are 90% almost word for word copies of Mark's Gospel. And if the author of those Gospels had access to eyewitnesses then why were they forced to do this? And you might say that they must have simply used the same eye witnesses. But this is absurd– again, Matthew and Luke are 90% almost word for word copies of Mark. Even if the authors had the same eye witnesses to rely on it's absurd to think their accounts would agree to this extent. Worse still: the material left over is often shared, again almost word for word, between Matthew and Luke.

Shall I go on? Alright. Worse still is that the accounts are filled with obvious attempts to connect Jesus, with his words and deeds, to Moses, Elisha, and Elijah, since a strain of Jewish tradition held that they were to come again at some future time. Then there's the fact that the earliest Christian documents, Paul's letters, dating to as early as 50 CE (1 Thessalonians), seem to be almost totally ignorant of the life events and teachings of Jesus, even when to have mentioned those events and teachings would have been to Paul's advantage as he argued! This makes perfect sense if there was a failed apocalyptic prophet (like so many others) named Jesus around whom the later myths and legends developed (and of course if there was no Jesus at all) but no sense at all if there were eyewitness that people were going to check to verify the story.

Finally, always remember that these were deeply superstitious people living in a deeply superstition time. They would believe anything so long as it was a compelling story told by a charismatic and seemingly trustworthy person. There is absolutely no evidence from any source from the time during which we might suppose that there were eyewitness where someone is said to have gone to the eyewitness to check the story before accepting its truth.

The question of whether they would have been willing to be persecuted for converting is a different one altogether. And that too fails to make the case for the historicity of the narrative. First, it assumes that what people are willing to die for is ONLY that which they have confirmed to be the truth. This we know is patently false. Was Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate cult following truth when they committed suicide on the belief that there was a UFO hiding in the tail of the comet Hale-Bopp? Second, most martyr tales, from which we get the notion that Christians were willing to be persecuted and willing to die for their beliefs, are either filled with legends and have an obvious mythical character, and are therefore untrustworthy as witness, or date to later times during which the martyr would not have been able to verify with eyewitness even if they had wanted to. And even the martyr tales that do date to earlier times say absolutely nothing about the martyr being willing to be persecuted because they had verified with eyewitnesses and this is why they refuse to recant.

But worse is that the entire notion of the persecuted and martyred 1st Century CE Christian is way overblown. The first official Roman persecution wasn't until 62 CE at the earliest, even according to Acts. This, of course, already later than is likely to have made eyewitnesses commonplace and easy locate and verify with. And even this (by Nero) and the later persecution by Domitian during the end of his reign (his reign having ended in 96 CE making it once again way later than we have any right to expect eyewitness to be around and easily found) was declared extralegal and the men formally damned with the pronunciation of the domatio memoriae made on them, literally erasing them from Roman official history as enemies of the state. Even in 110 CE the Emperor Trajan gave instructions to Pliny the Younger that declaring political allegiance to Christ over the Emperor was in effect to commit a crime. But he tells Pliny in the same correspondence that there is no specific law against Christianity per se, and that Christians were not to be hunted down. In fact, that Pliny was writing to Trajan to make the inquiry at all indicates that he had never had to deal with the Christians before and so was asking the Emperor for guidance.

But perhaps most damaging to this notion is that if this was the case, if people were verifying with eyewitness, and those people were being used as verification for others as being 1 degree if separation from eyewitnesses, and so on, we would expect Christianity to have been a runaway success! Why wouldn't have people believed if this was the case?? And yet we find that only less than 1% of population anywhere converted to Christianity until the 2nd Century! And even then, by the most favorable estimates, there was only 25% believers among the population by the year 300 CE. After 300 years of evangelism still 75% of the people rejected the religion.

So when we examine this question we find that not only is there no reason to think that a person who refuses to recant their beliefs in the face of death or persecution necessarily believes something true, there's no reason to think that anyone did verify the truth claims of Christianity before refusing to recant resulting in their persecution and/or death, no reason to think that they could have done so in principle and in practice owing to the dates, the difficulty traveling, and the way people lived generally (there was no phonebooks or 411 assistance), and no reason to think that very many people were persecuted at all until way later when it would have been impossible to verify the truth claims of Christianity with eyewitnesses.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page