Biblical Inerrancy

willhud9 · **#41** by **willhud9** » Nov 03, 2012 10:13 pm

MS2 wrote:
willhud9 wrote:The inspired word of God belief allows the Christian to maintain a steady faith, but also allows them to consider historical, and archaeological evidences which are constantly fluctuating.

Maybe it does do this, but only until the Christian starts to ask if there is a coherent way of formulating the idea that it both contains errors and comes from god (who of course does not propound error). Are you aware of a formula that successfully does this.

Well as I said in my post it is of the Christian belief that the church comes from God, but is run by man and thus while important for the furthering of God's kingdom is liable to the fallibility of man. Likewise the Bible comes from God, but is written by man and while useful as a god inspired tool for the furthering of God's kingdom is still subject to author biased and misrepresentations of historical facts.

MS2 · **#42** by **MS2** » Nov 03, 2012 10:29 pm

willhud9 wrote:Likewise the Bible comes from God, but is written by man and while useful as a god inspired tool for the furthering of God's kingdom is still subject to author biased and misrepresentations of historical facts.

You mean it is the authors who are inspired, not (or at least only secondarily so) their writings?

Onyx8 · **#43** by **Onyx8** » Nov 03, 2012 10:37 pm

Yes, God inspired them to write stuff that consolidated the powers that existed as the top dogs. Funny that it was all the same folks...

willhud9 · **#44** by **willhud9** » Nov 03, 2012 10:56 pm

MS2 wrote:
willhud9 wrote:Likewise the Bible comes from God, but is written by man and while useful as a god inspired tool for the furthering of God's kingdom is still subject to author biased and misrepresentations of historical facts.

You mean it is the authors who are inspired, not (or at least only secondarily so) their writings?

Yes and no. As you say secondarily the writings persisted long after their authors have died and many of the themes of Christianity love God, love your neighbour, the good Samaritan, fruit of the spirit, etc are themes found within the Old Testament as well as New and remain relevant in a shifted culture, etc. The only issues that are really subject to intense debate are the issues which are historically dated and reflect the paradigms of the date of authorship (i.e. slavery, homosexuality, etc.) and these issues are only dated because of a conservative resistance to the change in culture. Christianity was not meant to be a cultural religion, it was meant to be a calling for the entire world that transcended cultures (i.e. Paul's ministry to the Gentiles and other non-Hebrew people), and to this day it still does, but it's followers have a hard time coming to terms with many of the more dated principles of the Scriptures.

willhud9 · **#45** by **willhud9** » Nov 03, 2012 11:01 pm

Also forgive me if my arguments sound ad hoc or like ramblings. I just really need things to occupy my mind and right now debating religion is definitely a good mind exercise.

MS2 · **#46** by **MS2** » Nov 03, 2012 11:26 pm

willhud9 wrote:
MS2 wrote:
willhud9 wrote:Likewise the Bible comes from God, but is written by man and while useful as a god inspired tool for the furthering of God's kingdom is still subject to author biased and misrepresentations of historical facts.

You mean it is the authors who are inspired, not (or at least only secondarily so) their writings?

Yes and no. As you say secondarily the writings persisted long after their authors have died and many of the themes of Christianity love God, love your neighbour, the good Samaritan, fruit of the spirit, etc are themes found within the Old Testament as well as New and remain relevant in a shifted culture, etc.

But these themes sound suspiciously cherry-picked. There are other darker themes which are just as prevalent. And whether or not they are cherry-picked, there is presumably is no need to think the 'good' themes come from god. Why can't they just have come from the brains of their authors?

MS2 · **#47** by **MS2** » Nov 03, 2012 11:29 pm

willhud9 wrote:Also forgive me if my arguments sound ad hoc or like ramblings. I just really need things to occupy my mind and right now debating religion is definitely a good mind exercise.

Doesn't worry me. THere's nothing wrong with rambling, as long as you're not answering an exam question or something.

Nicko · **#48** by **Nicko** » Nov 04, 2012 3:51 am

swiatlo wrote:If you prefer to read:What Price Biblical Errancy? by WLC.

Unfortunately, the "reason" given there is that for the inerrantist to concede errors in the Bible, they would need to stop being an inerrantist.

My OP clearly asks for a good reason to believe in inerrancy.

The core message of the podcast is the Inerrancy is not a core of Christian belief. You can suspect errors in the Bible and still have faith in God and work of Jesus.

Something that the OP concedes.

To be clear about my motivation for starting this thread, the purpose of it was to highlight Lion IRC's dissimulation in the face of direct opportunities to make explicit the reasons for him believing what he claimed to believe. He claimed to have good reasons to think that the Bible was inerrant, but never stated what they were.

andrewk · **#49** by **andrewk** » Nov 04, 2012 5:42 am

I overcame my aversion and read the Craig essay.
His central points seem to be that
1. the Bible is inerrant because Craig knows Jesus and Jesus told him so.
2. Inerrancy - in Craig's and Jesus's language - doesn't mean the Bible is literally accurate in every respect. It means that it is accurate in all respects except those in which we should not expect it to be accurate because of its genre, which he says is 'Ancient Biography'.

This seems to provide an ad hoc get out of jail free card for the inerrantists. They can just dismiss any contradictions or otherwise inconvenient bits (genocides perhaps?) as parts we should not expect to be accurate in that genre, while insisting that whatever they want to uphold is the literal truth.

Maybe that works for them but I can't see anybody other than a fundamentalist Christian regarding it as the most risible piece of fabricated ad hoc nonsense imaginable.

Craig wants to have his cake and eat it too. He rejects Spong's way of saying the Bible is mostly metaphor, but wants to be able to claim metaphor or poetic licence just when he needs to, to escape ridicule.

Byron · **#50** by **Byron** » Nov 04, 2012 8:39 am

willhud9 wrote:See but even William Lane Craig's argument falls short because no where did Jesus say that Scriptures were the inerrant word of God. NT Wright, Anglican Bishop and theologian, writes on this matter in Simply Christian that the use of inerrant and infallible are words that carry extra baggage that can be found nowhere in the Bible. Did Jesus and for that matter believe that Scriptures were the inspired/god-breathed word of God? Yes. And in my opinion, that belief is way more reasonable. Just because something is inspired does not mean it is without error. The church, the body of Christ, is considered inspired by the Holy Spirit and yet still strays from the path of righteousness on a consistent basis. Likewise, the Bible can be inspired by God which means it contains within it the necessary equipment for a Christian to according to 1 Timothy (which was discussing the Hebrew Scriptures but is still applicable for New Testament ones): All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. It is only later interpretations by the church that God-breathed got associated with cannot be wrong and is the literal word for word account of everything God has done. The inspired word of God belief allows the Christian to maintain a steady faith, but also allows them to consider historical, and archaeological evidences which are constantly fluctuating.

You use a brilliantly concise phrase in your subsequent post: Christianity is supposed to "transcended cultures." Paul's (authentic) letters are shot through with this trans-cultural approach to truth, ditching the law of Moses and Gentile norms alike if they get in the way of the dynamic revelation of God's spirit. It's anti-conservative.

Which makes it a whopping irony that Christianity's ended up conserving a canon of scripture, and defending it with such vehemence.

N.T. Wright, as usual, plays both sides against the middle. He's slippery as an eel about the exact status of the Bible: the clearest he's been is that it's an extension of God's authority, and the NT authors knew they were writing with that authority. His scriptural gay-bashing and politically convenient pro-female ordination exegesis put him in the open evangelical camp, a camp that could, politely, be described as having it all: the clarity and authoritarianism of evangelical Christianity while being "open" to reforms that stop them looking like bigots. I expect a mass-conversion to a gay-affirming position pretty damn soon.

Which just goes to show, yet again, that "scriptural authority" is an illusion. Texts are inert. People read the meanings they want into them. Like all cases of the authority fallacy, it's a rock to cling to against the tides of our rudderless existence. And in giving human opinions the status of holy writ, it also creates a perfect storm.

nunnington · **#51** by **nunnington** » Nov 04, 2012 10:30 am

An interesting text to cross-bat inerrantists with is Romans 13, where Paul not only says that Christians should obey the governing authorities, but also, that he who has authority 'is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrong-doer'. Hear that, you right-wing Christian Republicans - Obama has been sent by God to chasten you and bring you back from your malfeasance! Hearken ye!

John P. M. · **#52** by **John P. M.** » Nov 04, 2012 11:02 am

Byron wrote:Paul's (authentic) letters are shot through with this trans-cultural approach to truth, ditching the law of Moses and Gentile norms alike if they get in the way of the dynamic revelation of God's spirit. It's anti-conservative.

Which makes it a whopping irony that Christianity's ended up conserving a canon of scripture, and defending it with such vehemence.

So... from the point of view of the (religious) 'non-inerrantists', is it fair to say that God inspired certain texts to be written down for that exact time period and for those exact people when he did so, but God didn't intend for mankind to collect these texts and keep them as a compendium, but rather that each text had its supposed life span within a specific culture, and it's people's fault for collecting them under one book?

I... can't make heads or tails of people's views on this at all. I'm trying, but I fail, like above probably. What was God's plan with inspiring these texts again? Why not preserve them inerrantly if they were to be preserved at all? Were they ever inerrant in the religious view of people here?

I know you're not religious Byron; perhaps my confusion stems from trying to tie the non-religious explanations together with the (progressive, liberal) religious explanations.

I mean - from a religious view, if God intended for it to become a compendium that would be used across time, and God is an omni-God, I can't see why the Bible wouldn't be inerrant (free from contradictions, copyist mistakes, translation mistakes etc.). If you inspire it, why not continue preserving it?

nunnington · **#53** by **nunnington** » Nov 04, 2012 11:43 am

I would think that many liberals are both non-inerrantists, and non-inspirationists. The word 'inspiration' is also ambiguous - for example, Leonardo could have been inspired by certain ancient images of the Last Supper.

John P. M. · **#54** by **John P. M.** » Nov 04, 2012 12:06 pm

Well, if one removes divine inspiration altogether (which wouldn't gel with 2 Timothy 3:16, but of course, if that verse wasn't inspired in the first place...!), then we're back to "the collective but separate attempts of a few men separated by time and space, of getting to know the divine". And so theism instead of deism seems like even more of a reach. I mean, if there's a total disconnect between the foundational texts of the religion and the God and divine plan the texts purport to be about, then why would anyone trust the words of a few men living in ancient times over their own faculties and experiences now in modern times?

John P. M. · **#55** by **John P. M.** » Nov 04, 2012 12:19 pm

Btw, I grew up believing the Bible was "inerrant" and "inspired". It was a woolly concept then too, though. We didn't believe every single word had been dictated verbatim so that the writer was a robot of sorts, and we didn't believe AFAIR, that there were no discrepancies (caused by the delivery process). But still, God's words came through clearly, even if the writer had some autonomy to form the sentences, was our understanding.
The OT is full of 'The LORD says this' and 'The LORD says that', and from a believing POV, that would be the pinnacle of hubris if it weren't really so, no? Why would God allow that?
I must admit that without the 'firmness' of the more conservative view, it all seems very wishy-washy and 'whatever-ish', nonchalant and capricious to me. "Here, I'm giving you some foggy imagery in your mind; make something useful out of it - hopefully you'll get somewhere close to what I actually wanted to say, but can't be bothered to say clearly. Good luck".

Byron · **#56** by **Byron** » Nov 04, 2012 2:46 pm

John P. M. wrote:
Byron wrote:Paul's (authentic) letters are shot through with this trans-cultural approach to truth, ditching the law of Moses and Gentile norms alike if they get in the way of the dynamic revelation of God's spirit. It's anti-conservative.

Which makes it a whopping irony that Christianity's ended up conserving a canon of scripture, and defending it with such vehemence.

So... from the point of view of the (religious) 'non-inerrantists', is it fair to say that God inspired certain texts to be written down for that exact time period and for those exact people when he did so, but God didn't intend for mankind to collect these texts and keep them as a compendium, but rather that each text had its supposed life span within a specific culture, and it's people's fault for collecting them under one book?

I... can't make heads or tails of people's views on this at all. I'm trying, but I fail, like above probably. What was God's plan with inspiring these texts again? Why not preserve them inerrantly if they were to be preserved at all? Were they ever inerrant in the religious view of people here?

I know you're not religious Byron; perhaps my confusion stems from trying to tie the non-religious explanations together with the (progressive, liberal) religious explanations.

I mean - from a religious view, if God intended for it to become a compendium that would be used across time, and God is an omni-God, I can't see why the Bible wouldn't be inerrant (free from contradictions, copyist mistakes, translation mistakes etc.). If you inspire it, why not continue preserving it?

Speaking personally, I view the Christian bible as a key collection of texts, just like Shakespearian quartos. Entirely human documents and groupings.

I've no problem with Christians giving the NT a special place in their esteem. It's an artifact of a foundational period in the church's history. The problems start when the woo is piled on. If the canonization process isn't recognized as a human activity, Christians have created an idol. A paper pope. Not to mention all the horrors and absurdities that come when the authority fallacy is allowed to run wild.

For me the key question for any Christian is, "Can you say the Bible is wrong?" If not, there's a problem.

As for other Christian perspectives, I can see how they can be made to work, but as you and nunnington say, it all starts getting tangled when we start talking about supernatural "inspiration" and "inerrancy." And such theological puree is at cross-purposes to the real issue. It's all about having a source of authority. Luther played scripture against Magisterium. Without authority, it gets, as you say, messy and wishy-washy. Hey, that's life!

Byron · **#57** by **Byron** » Nov 04, 2012 2:52 pm

andrewk wrote:I overcame my aversion and read the Craig essay.
His central points seem to be that
1. the Bible is inerrant because Craig knows Jesus and Jesus told him so.
2. Inerrancy - in Craig's and Jesus's language - doesn't mean the Bible is literally accurate in every respect. It means that it is accurate in all respects except those in which we should not expect it to be accurate because of its genre, which he says is 'Ancient Biography'.

This seems to provide an ad hoc get out of jail free card for the inerrantists. They can just dismiss any contradictions or otherwise inconvenient bits (genocides perhaps?) as parts we should not expect to be accurate in that genre, while insisting that whatever they want to uphold is the literal truth.

Maybe that works for them but I can't see anybody other than a fundamentalist Christian regarding it as the most risible piece of fabricated ad hoc nonsense imaginable.

Craig wants to have his cake and eat it too. He rejects Spong's way of saying the Bible is mostly metaphor, but wants to be able to claim metaphor or poetic licence just when he needs to, to escape ridicule.

Not that Calamity Craig always has a problem with genocide ...

It is, as you say, ad hoc nonsense. We only get it 'cause they're determined to preserve the foundation of their power at any cost. It there's no true revelation, no proof-texts to beat folks down with, there's no reason to pay preachermen any more heed than the next gal or guy. They'd have to get attention by making a more convincing case than the next person with an opinion. And when your case is as weakass as Craig's, appeal to extrinsic authority's the only hope you've got.

Moonwatcher · **#58** by **Moonwatcher** » Nov 04, 2012 7:22 pm

Byron wrote:The easiest way to refute inerrancy is to line up synoptic variants of a pericope, which is biblical studies 101. The inerrantist's reduced to arguing either that separate but dazzlingly similar incidents occured, or that Jesus said everything attributed to him, which dissolves into repetitious nonsense in no time.

Or just compare the chronology of the gospels. This has lead to the whacked notion that Jesus tore the Temple's shit up on two separate occasions.

Ultimately inerrantists are hardcore dogmatists, and probably beyond the saving touch of reason (tho' there's always hope, and minds have changed). But exposing their dogma to the ridicule it deserves helps keep others from walking that dangerous road.

I know this is a very late reply but you could also hit them with Matthew 27's version of the final fate of Judas as opposed to the Acts chapter one version. Then you just hope their belief in inerrancy comes from genuine ignorance and not from faith. If it comes from ignornace, they may acknowledge there are errors because they have information they had not noticed before. If their belief in inerrancy comes from faith, they may know they look stupid defending inerrancy in the light of evidence or they may not even know they look stupid. Look at LionIRC's (non) arguments. Oh, he may have just been trolling but there are plenty of people who would persist in the same arguments with complete sincerity.

Byron · **#59** by **Byron** » Nov 04, 2012 8:42 pm

Moonwatcher wrote:
Byron wrote:The easiest way to refute inerrancy is to line up synoptic variants of a pericope, which is biblical studies 101. The inerrantist's reduced to arguing either that separate but dazzlingly similar incidents occured, or that Jesus said everything attributed to him, which dissolves into repetitious nonsense in no time.

Or just compare the chronology of the gospels. This has lead to the whacked notion that Jesus tore the Temple's shit up on two separate occasions.

Ultimately inerrantists are hardcore dogmatists, and probably beyond the saving touch of reason (tho' there's always hope, and minds have changed). But exposing their dogma to the ridicule it deserves helps keep others from walking that dangerous road.

I know this is a very late reply ...

It is risen indeed!

(Insert smut here)

... but you could also hit them with Matthew 27's version of the final fate of Judas as opposed to the Acts chapter one version. Then you just hope their belief in inerrancy comes from genuine ignorance and not from faith. If it comes from ignornace, they may acknowledge there are errors because they have information they had not noticed before. If their belief in inerrancy comes from faith, they may know they look stupid defending inerrancy in the light of evidence or they may not even know they look stupid. Look at LionIRC's (non) arguments. Oh, he may have just been trolling but there are plenty of people who would persist in the same arguments with complete sincerity.

Yup, there's always an out (like attributing one of Jesus' conflicting lineages to Mary). This is cast-iron dogma at play, which is why I always refuse to debate interpretations with inerrantists, preferring to ask them why they hold the belief.

swiatlo · **#60** by **swiatlo** » Nov 04, 2012 11:11 pm

Nicko wrote:
My OP clearly asks for a good reason to believe in inerrancy.

If a fox like WL Craig knew about any good reasons to believe that he would have exploit it to the last drop. Assuming understanding of inerrancy claim as lack of contradictions for example.
Maybe for some definitions (or understandings) of inerrancy there are no good reasons indeed. Expectation towards the text could be illegitimately exaggerated.

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