New Testament Inerrancy

[Still Alive]

15 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

The stuff they added was put in italics to distinguish it from the rest of the text.  The italicized material was added to help smooth out the grammatical differences between original Greek/Hebrew and English so that the English text better expresses the precision of the original languages.

So they didn't really "add" anything to the text.  They were honest and trustworthy so that the reader knew which words were from the original languages and which words  were put there to smooth out the text and make it more readable.

There is very, very little in the way of problems with mainstream translations and the original languages.  The problem is people use those arguments to justify their desire to not be under the authority of the parts of the Bible they don't agree with.

Have you ever read articles or, of late, watched youtube videos that slam non-KJV translations for taking stuff out of the bible, when what they've really done is removed the stuff that was not in the original language? It's actually kinda comical, once you dig into the subject. At least it would be, if it wasn't so serious.

[Still Alive]

15 hours ago, Davida said:

No I'm not , but you are not comprehending my meaning. 

In all seriousness, this is getting funny.

[Guest shiloh357]

4 minutes ago, Still Alive said:

Have you ever read articles or, of late, watched youtube videos that slam non-KJV translations for taking stuff out of the bible, when what they've really done is removed the stuff that was not in the original language? It's actually kinda comical, once you dig into the subject. At least it would be, if it wasn't so serious.

It's not that they took anything out, but the KJV and the modern translations don't belong to the same manuscript stream.   The KJV is not based on things like the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus or the Codex Sinaticus.   Those manuscripts are incomplete but are touted as the "best" MSS.  And they are not, really.   The Sinaticus was actually found in a basket and was due to be burned.  IN fact, some of it had already been burned.  Tischendorf managed to rescue what had not been destroyed.

Teh modern translations are from a stream of MSS that Wescott and Hort used to create their Greek text and most modern translations come from that text. 

[Still Alive]

15 hours ago, Davida said:

We are worried that you have leaped into embracing the false Christianity of worldly spirituality & have abandoned God's  TRUTH which is only found in Bible SCRIPTURE - and God's word is not based upon varied opinions btw. 

I get my truth from the bible and answer to prayer, and meditation on both. I don't think there is really much that I disagree with anyone here on, really, unless there are some KJV only people here. Basically, this whole argument is  sort of the equivalent of having a beautifully restored car and noticing a tiny scratch in the paint and arguing what caused that scratch. We all still love the car.

For me, these kinds of arguments are iron sharpening iron, as long as they stay civil. I actually imagine all of us after we all die, at a table at a "Starbucks" in heaven laughing about this encounter. The reason is that I think, at the end of the day, we all have it wrong, to one degree or another, though we are all searching for the truth and, by virtue of what the bible says about that endeavor, we are getting it "more right" with every day we search and discuss.

And that is why I'm here. And that is why I don't get offended.

[Still Alive]

15 hours ago, Davida said:

Really?  I've read hundreds upon hundreds of spiritual books by "men" and I see the difference between the Godly work of the Scripture given to us in the Bible. I see the attack on God's word as evil and the inspiration for THAT comes from the kingdom of darkness. Satan is always attacking what GOD said and trying to inject doubt in the minds and hearts of people like he did in the garden of Eden to first deceive Eve. 

 Self righteous & self-satisfied are those who think their thoughts & words are more spiritual and knowledgeable the God's written Word - the Holy Bible.  The Rob bell's of the world etc...the ones that preach error and false teachings , the internet is rampant with them. They will look down their noses upon those who believe that God's word is inerrant & infallible,  because they have bought a spiritual lie, they think they are just so spiritual & so intelligient & Cosmopolitan that they have left the small-minded- ness of the fundamental Bible- believing Christians -- that these Fools  have become wise in their own eyes  Isaiah 5:21, Proverbs 3:7  But you see God already wrote about them a long time ago &  predicted their folly.  God is GREAT!!

I think there is a lot we agree on, after reading that post.

However, speaking of "looking down their noses", there is a phrase going around lately as a put down: "Oh, it must be true because you saw it on the internet." What people don't realize is that before the internet, there was a similar phrase, also seen as a put down: "Oh, it must be true because you saw it in print."

Just as people often condemn those that "believe everything they see on the internet", a similar attitude was taken in the past regarding people that "believe everything they read".

Fact is, whether you read it in a book, listened to someone say it, or saw it on the internet, that is not what determines it's veracity or level of truthfulness. That is simply the medium. And the fact is that, yes, due to its proliferation and ease of disseminating information, the internet is by far the most powerful tool ever devised by man to distribute information to those who are most impacted by it. The bad news is that power can be used to spread a lot of lies very quickly. The good news is that it also spreads the truth very quickly.

I've read a lot, and I've watched a lot. And plenty of it is, IMO, truth, and plenty of it is baloney. On the internet the truth percolates to the top ridiculously easily compared to any other medium. I believe it is because of the search engines.

[Still Alive]

15 hours ago, Cobalt1959 said:

And now you go off into the weeds.

I have not seen a single post in this thread where someone questioned your salvation, so why would you drag the Church of Christ or other churches into the thread?  What they did or did not do is immaterial to what we are talking about.

Then you are not looking yard enough. But I really was not talking about this thread anyway. I was talking about the concept. And I wasn't dragging any church into this. I was talking about the attitude of some believers when they come across people who disagree with their particular take on the bible. That was a particular example that I'm aware of, so I used it. Do you want to talk about Catholics, Baptists, or literally any or all other churches? They (we) ALL have members that use that as their argument style.

i.e. it wasn't about that church. It was about those particular people's argument style.

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There is only one reason anyone would try and dismiss the innerancy of scripture.  It is always done to eliminate something in the text that someone finds uncomfortable.  The problem is not with others responses or them being hard-headed or something. 

That is not true. I'll give you a second reason: A person studies the English language and then starts drilling into Koine Greek and Hebrew lexicons and realizes many key verses in the English translations have been incorrectly interpreted. I can't even say "translated". 

I didn't decide I didn't like BMW's because I didn't want to like them.  I decided I didn't like them because I found out they are not that reliable and cost a fortune to fix.

I didn't come to the conclusion that English translations have translation errors because my ox was being gored in some verses. I came to that conclusion after discovering lexicons and using them. I can't deny the truth.

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You continually re-state your position and you continually talk in circles.  Your position amounts to saying you believe in the innerancy of scripture while also saying you do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture.  Both can't be true.

No. People mis-understand my position through incorrect inferences and I have to keep clarifying. For example. your last two statements that I say I believe and don't believe in the inerrancy. I've already said that I DO believe in the inerrancy of the scripture IN ITS ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. It's the English translations that I think are in error. But to add a further nuance, if I was on a desert island and all I had was an NIV, or a KJV, and no Lexicon, I believe I'd be fine. The Holy Spirit would cover the errors just fine.

I can't speak to the veracity of German, Japanese or any other translation because I don't read those languages. I leave that debate to those that do.

So, Original scripture = inerrant

English translations = has errors, some more than others.

[Still Alive]

27 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

It's not that they took anything out, but the KJV and the modern translations don't belong to the same manuscript stream.   The KJV is not based on things like the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus or the Codex Sinaticus.   Those manuscripts are incomplete but are touted as the "best" MSS.  And they are not, really.   The Sinaticus was actually found in a basket and was due to be burned.  IN fact, some of it had already been burned.  Tischendorf managed to rescue what had not been destroyed.

Teh modern translations are from a stream of MSS that Wescott and Hort used to create their Greek text and most modern translations come from that text. 

Yes. That pretty much gets to the core on that issue.

White does a great job with it and in a form that anyone even curious about this stuff in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/King-James-Only-Controversy-Translations/dp/0764206052

[Still Alive]

Just now, Davida said:

No , actually it is really quite sad & spiritually dangerous when a person doesn't recognize the Word of God as just that,they will allow in any kind of teaching that will tickle their ears.  Only someone who has not a clue about spiritual truth would think it funny. 

It is like a person walking through an unknown territory and throwing away their compass, map, self-defense, source of water & food.  

I think I clarified in another post that it would be funny if it were not so serious. but, truth be told, it is kinda funny from my perspective. I especially like the reference to "tickling ears". I wondered how long it would take for someone to come up with that one. You see, I didn't come up with this because I didn't like what I was reading. I came up with it when I was exposed to a Greek Lexicon. It changed everything. I've actually considered creating my own translation of the bible, just for my own use. After all, anyone back in Jesus day who had the original writings and spoke the language would have been doing exactly that: Reading the words and using their mind and understanding of the language to digest, for themselves, what it was saying.

Too bad we couldn't discuss this face to face. The nuances would show that we almost certainly don't disagree as much as you think we do.

[Still Alive]

Y'know, I think I need to say something that is needed to clarify my position that, "rather than say the bible IS the word of God, I believe it CONTAINS the word of God". So here goes:

1. When I say it contains the word of God, I mean that I believe it is everything described in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. But that applies to the original texts only. I believe that all translations in any language almost certainly contain errors, though they are, with rare exception, extremely minor and don't change the doctrine being taught, but can be sometimes used to change doctrine. Exceptions to this would be bibles that are seriously in error, e.g. the New World Translation.

2. The reason I even bring this up is because as I've grown as a Christian and been exposed to many, MANY different Christian belief systems, I've seen people seriously twist the meaning of bible verses and hold that twisted interpretation itself to be the undeniable "word of God" and anyone who tries to point out the error of their translation by showing its inability to be reconciled to what the rest of the bible says on that subject, they respond as though you are saying Jesus isn't God, often verbally "violently".

3. As Christians, we are admonished in 2 Peter to demonstrate these attributes:

Faith

Goodness

Knowledge

Self Control

Perseverance

Godliness

Mutual affection

Love

Notice "Knowledge" is on that list. I believe we all should share the gospel from a position of knowledge. I believe that it is a correct path to understand the meaning behind all scripture not only from the point of view of a 21st century elderly white male, but the point of view of a poor woman in Sudan hearing the word for the first time, or a Shepherd in the middle east in 44 AD.

4. There is a scene from a movie called "Life of Brian" that I like to use to demonstrate this. Just look up, in YouTube Life of Brian Sandal and you will find the excerpt. I'll avoid a long explanation. The point it makes is that people who see their English translation bible as "THE" word of God will often glom onto a single phrase and run with it as inerrant instruction on running their life. This gets you things like condemning women who cut their hair short, or men that have long hair, etc. And worse. And often, the verse they are using to support a major doctrine is contradicted all over the bible - at least, their interpretation is.

So I'm never trying to say we can't trust the bible to be "the" word of God really. What I'm saying is we need to be careful in how we interpret it, and if we are going to use a particular verse to support our spiritual position on a subject, we had darn sure better check it against a lexicon and make sure we're not going off the reservation due to a translation that misses an interpretation nuance that sends us off a cliff. Personally, I think this is why there are so many denominations and so many versions of "Baptist" where I live.

Those that think I'm throwing out the bible as just something that I can interpret any way I want do not understand what I'm saying in all my posts. It may be because they are not really reading all of my posts (Which I understand. I can get wordy) or that I'm not communicating it very well.

Hopefully this post helps.

 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

1 hour ago, Still Alive said:

 

I didn't come to the conclusion that English translations have translation errors because my ox was being gored in some verses. I came to that conclusion after discovering lexicons and using them. I can't deny the truth.

No. People mis-understand my position through incorrect inferences and I have to keep clarifying. For example. your last two statements that I say I believe and don't believe in the inerrancy. I've already said that I DO believe in the inerrancy of the scripture IN ITS ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. It's the English translations that I think are in error. But to add a further nuance, if I was on a desert island and all I had was an NIV, or a KJV, and no Lexicon, I believe I'd be fine. The Holy Spirit would cover the errors just fine.

I can't speak to the veracity of German, Japanese or any other translation because I don't read those languages. I leave that debate to those that do.

So, Original scripture = inerrant

English translations = has errors, some more than others.

The problem is that you don't understand inerrancy  and what it means doctrinally when applied to Scripture.    Inerrancy simply means that if the Bible says it happened, it happened.    That's all it means.   Inerrancy only applies to the historical claims of Scripture.   That is why we can say that the English translations are inerrant, because they accurately reflect the historical claims of the Bible.

Infallibility applies to the truth claims of Scripture.  If the Bible says it is right, then it is right.  If the Bible says it is wrong, then it is wrong.  That's infallibility. 

The doctrine of inspiration is the ONLY doctrine related to the authority of the Bible that applies only to the originals.   The copies are not inspired.  Only the originals, what we call the autographs, are what was inspired.   We don't have the originals in existence any longer.  We have copies in Greek, 5,000 or so copies in Greek. 

Inerrancy doesn't apply to issues related to translational errors or discrepancies just like it doesn't apply to discrepancies in the Greek MSS.   

There are over 150,000 discrepancies, or what we call scribal errors in the in the Greek MSS alone, not to mention some scribal errors in the Hebrew OT.   So, operating from your flawed understanding of what inerrancy means, we would have to throw out the entire Greek NT.   

As I said yesterday, you don't really understand this stuff and you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to translation and biblical doctrines regarding the authority of biblical Scripture.  That's not a put-down.  It is an objective and truthful observation.