Biblical Innerancy is Probably False
Whenever you attack someone on the inconsistencies in the Bible, they will often retreat to the realm of possibility. But the point I always make is “Why should we care about possibility?” It’s possible that you are reading a blog post typed by a large, green rodent. It’s possible that you will wake up tomorrow only to discover that you’re on a Vogon ship and you forgot your towel. Shouldn’t we instead be concerned with what is likely – with what is probable? With that in mind, let’s consider the issue of biblical inerrancy and discuss probability.
I’d like to be overwhelmingly generous to those who support inerrancy. I’m going to grant you two things:
1. We will say there are only 40 alleged inconsistencies in the whole Bible*
2. We will grant an extremely high probability to each inconsistency and say that there is a 95% probability that a resolution is correct
The way to determine the collective probability (the probability that all of these inconsistencies are merely apparent and would be resolved if we knew the right context, language, etc.) is to multiply the probabilities together. If, for example, you posited two simultaneous events, one with a probability of 50% and another with a probability of 35%, the probability of both together would be 17.5% (0.5 x 0.35 = 0.175). If there were only two inconsistencies in the Bible, each with a probability of 95%, then your collective probability would be 90.25% (0.95 x 0.95 = 0.9025). Are you following me so far? It’s pretty simple, really.
Now for the big question. What is the collective probability, given (1) and (2) above? It is only 12.85%, and that is with my very generous concessions. Conversely, there is over an 87% chance that the position of inerrancy is incorrect. How can that possibly be defended?
*I recently saw a book written by an apologist attempting to counter the 40 most popular alleged inconsistencies. So, I think we can assume there are at least 40. Here is a link covering 457 inconsistencies in the Bible: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html
If we leave the very high probability of 95% resolution and up the number to resolve to 457, then we get:
0.95^457 = 0.00000000660218389726311%
Now that is a very small percentage! There is a six billionth of a percent chance that inerrancy is correct, given these numbers.
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Comment by Philip Jackson Armstrong on July 7, 2011 at 10:04pm -
What are you talking about. I think it it is Mathew or Mark15-7 When jesus says that some of you will not taste death until prophecy is fulfilled. Where are those people. At least 2 two of them. Some of you. means more than one. Since you are an expert can you introduce me to them. Or is your bible wrong. Anyway I really really want to meet these people. Please can I at least have their email address.
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Comment by Kevin on July 8, 2011 at 12:40am -
Why can we not just stop talking about a book written by opinion and response, you will always find crap in that book and here is why...the male population (as they are the ones who wrote it)...what are the characteristics of this weak group of humans?
We know we are self righteous liars, we know we divert the truth away from ourselves, we know we chase after our own dicks, we know we are responsible for every wrong we experience today yet will not accept or talk about that "FACT", hell we even created an invisible diety called the devil, that looks like us, sounds like us, has all our characteristics...yet we claim is not us and we can use this invisible man made creature to blame everything we do individually wrong.
And now years later you are confused that there are literal contradictions in a book written by us, go figure.
Hey I got an idea lets blame it on whom the stories are written on...lets take all our manipulated propaganda and rumors we created about someone else and blame it on him, even if he is not a he, shhh we wrote it that way so woman would follow us, yet that which gives birth would actually be female but they are dumb...all we need is a fall guy right! And the blame will be on them...this is great!
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Comment by Dustin on July 8, 2011 at 12:48am -
I think the math puts it into perspective. I liked the last percentage lol ...
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Comment by Michael Gage on July 8, 2011 at 7:12am -
Thanks, Dustin. The last number is so small it virtually is impossible. I think the next time a Christian tells me it's possible, I'm going to point that out. I also saw a probability for a person getting struck by lightning and it was six times higher than that last percentage.
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Comment by Philip Jackson Armstrong on July 14, 2011 at 8:11pm
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I totally misunderstood what you were saying. I shouldn't stay up past 7PM.
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