Biblical Inerrancy

[dd_8630]

Why do people take the Bible as inerrant? Why not accept that errors, factual, grammatical, mathematical, etc, could and have been made? The Bible needn't be infallible to be the Truth, especially since one is trying to convey the Absolute into a 66 chapter book written for apes.

[st. Worm]

Why do people take the Bible as inerrant? Why not accept that errors, factual, grammatical, mathematical, etc, could and have been made? The Bible needn't be infallible to be the Truth, especially since one is trying to convey the Absolute into a 66 chapter book written for apes.

Well, the Bible is a very large collection of 66 books. If you believe that it contains these errors you should be able to list 30 or 40 very quickly. Why not give us your list of errors and we can discuss them? Of course, orthodox Christianity only claims that the autographs themselves are inerrant and infallible. What we have now are copies where the basic truths have been maintained but since they are copies we make no claim to their perfection. So, lets see your list of 30 errors.

sw

[st. Worm]

Why do people take the Bible as inerrant? Why not accept that errors, factual, grammatical, mathematical, etc, could and have been made? The Bible needn't be infallible to be the Truth, especially since one is trying to convey the Absolute into a 66 chapter book written for apes.

Well, the Bible is a very large collection of 66 books. If you believe that it contains these errors you should be able to list 30 or 40 very quickly. Why not give us your list of errors and we can discuss them? Of course, orthodox Christianity only claims that the autographs themselves are inerrant and infallible. What we have now are copies where the basic truths have been maintained but since they are copies we make no claim to their perfection. So, lets see your list of 30 errors.

sw

[Bob1234375]

The errors are in copying. (Mathematical, grammatical, etc...) The message itself has no errors.

EDIT: And translation.

Edited July 19, 2006 by Bob1234375

[EricH]

Why do people take the Bible as inerrant? Why not accept that errors, factual, grammatical, mathematical, etc, could and have been made? The Bible needn't be infallible to be the Truth, especially since one is trying to convey the Absolute into a 66 chapter book written for apes.

If the Boble maintained anything that was not true as truthful, it would not be the truth. If ist is suspect at any point, its entire message becomes suspect

[Nero's Fiddle]

If the Bible maintained anything that was not true as truthful, it would not be the truth. If ist is suspect at any point, its entire message becomes suspect

Exactly. We base our eternities on the fact that this Book was given to us by God, not besmirched in any way (until the translation, etc, phase) by the fact that He gave it to us through men. If we believe that there are errors in the Bible, we must accept the possibility that everything else, every truth, is tainted by human involvement in its formation.

Moreover, I would submit that we have incredible evidence that the Bible could not have been generated by man's devices... it transcends what man is capable of. Therefore, we have every reason to believe it should not contain errors, because we see "the fingerprint of God" so clearly in it. And we know He cannot be in error.

written for apes

Is this an evolutionary insert or a commentary on ancient civilizations?

Should we be insulted?

[Brandli5]

Well, if we are to be insulted then it should be him that is insulted. If a person cannot see his own Creator as being Great, then what are you going to do with a person like that?

Nothing.

Just pray and pray and Ask God to show him what his Soul is missing.

Animals were created NOT equal to man.

Man was created Equal.

If anyone is an ape its because their mind is on the same wave length.

I know my Creator, and master. The holy spirit can make it known to anyone else who wants it also.

[secondeve]

If the Bible maintained anything that was not true as truthful, it would not be the truth. If ist is suspect at any point, its entire message becomes suspect

This is exactly the reason why I and other athiests have been asking about the Biblical ideas of God being all-knowing, all-seeing, all-good and all-powerful. If it is logically impossible for him to be any/all of these things and still keep with what scripture has said of him, then the message of the Bible is suspect. So far, though, the big hang-up is omnibenevolence: Christians who've responded to those particular threads have been divided on whether or not this term, or one like it, is intended to apply to God at all. Some people have said God is all-good; others have said God is capable of hate. Sorry to chime in - it's just this was a very well-phrased, condensed version of what's been being argued in other threads, but which, I think, had been getting misunderstood a bit.

Edited July 20, 2006 by secondeve

[CSLewis]

The bible is not a history book nor is it a science book,

[sylvan3]

Why do people take the Bible as inerrant? Why not accept that errors, factual, grammatical, mathematical, etc, could and have been made? The Bible needn't be infallible to be the Truth, especially since one is trying to convey the Absolute into a 66 chapter book written for apes.

Can you show me something in the Bible that has been proven to be an error?

I guess the key word here is "proven". Let's say for the sake of no argument that it can't be proven that there are errors in the classic sense (of course, I dispute that but will not follow that particular avenue).

I would then ask you if it could be proven that the Bible has been interpreted in a multitude of ways, resulting in numerous denominations and rifts amongst Christians. I think that can be proven quite easily. This then shows that the ambiguousness of the Bible is a huge fallibility of the document itself. Thus, it is in error in that it can't be interpreted uniformly due to ambiguousness. One would have to ask why God would put forth a book that he knew would be interpreted in so many different ways.

Of course, many will say that these numerous interpretations reveal the fallibility of man. This is only partly true and wouldn't explain why so many extremely intelligent people differ so widely on biblical interpretations. There is no way to know who is completely right. Everyone will claim to have the "correct" interpretation, but no one knows for sure. For example, the issue of faith vs. works is one that Christianity still has not reconciled, although many will claim to know "for sure" how that should be interpreted in the Bible (please check my thread, "Faith vs. Works).