| Author | Message | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3789 Registered: 10-2004  |
Michael wrote:
I don't understand why you are so quick to charge God's Word with being in error. Regarding Luke 3:36, see: http://www.apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=668 Jeremy | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 131 Registered: 2-2011 |
~Something to ponder~from Gracethru Faith, 9-1-2011~~~"Is it ALL or Nothing? Is salvation dependent on believing that the Bible is completely true? For example, is it important that I believe that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale(big fish)? and spit back out? Or that Moses parted the Red Sea? The only thing required of us for salvation is believing that when Jesus died on the cross He was dying for our sins and offering to become our Savior if we agree to let Him. John 3:16 - John 6:28-29. However, the Bible is GOD's Word, given to us so we can come to know Him. If we reject some of His Word, aren't we saying that we don't really trust Him to be truthful with us? If we don't believe some of the things He says, how can we believe we are SAVED? After all, we only have His Word on it." ~mj~ | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 561 Registered: 3-2009 |
I don't here anyone here rejecting God's word. We're discussing how to interpret it in the way the author intended. It's not so straightforward in all cases. (Please refer to the roundtable discussion above). | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 562 Registered: 3-2009 |
Oops, I meant to say that I don't *hear* anyone here rejecting God's Word.  | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 12910 Registered: 12-2003  |
I like Chris's statement above...I realize he was speaking about creation, science, and Scripture, but I think this sentence applies to the whole Book:
I'm with you, Seekinglight, about referring to the biblical experts for help resolving some of the details of the OT accounts/histories. I'm convinced that, like the entire issue of "how" God saves us and "how" His sovereignty works without negating my responsibility to make decisions...in the same way, the entire reliability of Scripture is real albeit a mystery. I know that over the past years, the more seriously I take every word of Scripture, paying attention to the nuances of the prepositions and verb tenses, etc., the more life and reality "make sense". Oh, I can't explain everything with a satisfying formula or explain how God works, but I find that I trust God more, that the "unknown" is less bothersome because God Himself is more "known", and so forth. We are dealing with spiritual reality here. Scripture reveals spiritual truth; it can't always be graphed or diagrammed...but it is real, and our material world makes even more sense when we begin to see it within the transcendent grid of spiritual reality. I'd better stop before y'all think I've gone to blathering...I'm not sure how to explain what I mean. But I know that the more seriously I take the words, even when I don't understand everything, the more "things" make sense. There is something really, really significant in the Lord Jesus being The Word, and God giving us The Word at Pentecost...indwelling us and giving us the spiritual ability to communicate with our race again...even those whose words we cannot understand. God's Word is bigger and more powerful and more defining and significant than we are capable of fully comprehending in our mortal state. I feel like Job: I am speaking about what I do not know... Colleen | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 373 Registered: 7-2010  |
Jeremy, Thank you for the link. Like most of the explanations out there, the Luke one is largely an explanation of assumption (thus the frequent use of the word "might"). The research I did on this previously all pointed out that the error existed in the Septuagint (which it does) and thus made the logical conclusion that it migrated out of Luke's Bible into the record he wrote. The apologist in your article points out an existing manuscript of Luke which does not contain the error, which is new information for me (other accounts omitted the existence of this manuscript). This means I need to re-investigate this with the newer information. Michael | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 374 Registered: 7-2010 |
This is the problem with some "explain it away" books and sites... they have a strong bias for making it all work, one way or another, even if that means irresponsible authoring. Obviously there is more to the Luke story than my previous sources bothered to look into. The same can be said for the Exodus 12 discussion in the other thread. When I brought it up, Cloudwatcher posted a quote from the "Big Book of Bible Difficulties." This book appeared very authoritative on the subject, but it presented a solution which made more problems than the single issue it solved (nor did the solution even meet all of the criteria that I had already outlined in my question). An alternate simpler solution emerged from the thread which did not make a mess of things. Some explanations I encounter are well thought and verifiable, either by textual evidence or by well documented cultural practices. Others are a house of cards built on unverifiable assumptions. Many require embarrassing mental gymnastics that really do remind me way to much of SDA-think. The favorite one I have encountered so far has been a claim that Hagar and Keturah are the same person even though we have no way to prove it and there is absolutely no contextual basis to suddenly switch a few paragraphs apart (referring to the Ishmaelites versus Midianites in Genesis 37 and 39). If the author had any proof of his assumption, he/she didn't share it, and I was left with "is that the best you can do?" (side note: I am aware of the other explanations for this one and am not asking for links to them... I was just using this one explanation as an example) This is an intellectual discussion among educated Christians we are having here, but how does it translate to a discussion with "Joe atheist"? When Joe atheist asks if he can trust the Bible (and/or how), that is a very valid question from his perspective. How do we answer it? What if Joe atheist is somewhat educated on the subject (there are entire sites dedicated to disproving the Bible)? Can we answer his questions, or do we now amend our previous assertions on the authority of the Bible by adding a 400+ page book to answer all of his problems because we can't? Needless to say, even before the content is examined that just looks hypocritical. All Joe atheist cares about is if when he walks to the closest bookstore, will the copy in his hands be accurate? Discussions on manuscripts only prove that his copy is inaccurate when I just told him it is 100% accurate. Yes, I know what I meant in Christian-speak, but I didn't really answer his question, did I? The same can be said after Joe is saved. I can relate to Joe the new Christian now. Everything is "God breathed" like these evangelicals say, right? Not so fast... with a little education that term means something completely different than what the masses use it as! The hypocrisy needs to stop! Side note for the record: I only encountered a handful of questions when constructing the chronology. Researching and answering them led to pointing out several dozen more questions. The brief sample above is only the current "to look up" list as I worked through many. Had anyone had a single similar question and Googled it, they could have unraveled the same chain that I did. We really need to be prepared for this event. By the way, yes, I have approached my studies prayerfully. My leading has been that I have previously had an unrealistic superstitious view of how inerrancy works. I also am very well aware that all of my problems have been in the history and science related portions of the Bible and none of them have an impact on the plan of salvation. Despite the interest of all of the above, I am presently led to two key questions to explore and understand: 1) For what reason should I be more motivated to accept that the Bible is not an accurate science textbook than I would be motivated to accept that the Bible is not an accurate history textbook? 2) On behalf of Joe atheist: If God is so great and the Bible is supposed to reveal Him to us, then why didn't He protect the Bible in a way that I can trust it? My intuition says these both have the same answer, whatever that is. Michael | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 2059 Registered: 10-2002  |
Hey Michael, On the starlight thing, I had heard of some researcher some years ago who had documented that the speed of light has been consistently slowing down since it first started being measured. I googled it some years ago but didn't keep the links, sorry. Blessings, Ramone | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 375 Registered: 7-2010 |
Ramone, I've heard that before as well, but it only works if you cherry pick the measurements. If you include additional available observations it reveals that the speed has most likely been constant, but our accuracy in measuring it has improved. The older measurements both underestimate and overestimate the speed equally; the only way to get the slowing result is to ignore the slower parts of the old data. Also, I discussed the possibility of light slowing down in my cosmology paragraph above. Such a hypothesis can be extrapolated into observable predictions which are disproved by actual observation. Michael | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 563 Registered: 3-2009 |
Michael, thank you giving voice to the thoughts many of us are having or have had. I think a lot of folks are struggling with exactly the things that you are articulating. What helps me is to separate the ontological (the essence of what is real) from the epistemological (the methods and approaches by which we learn about what is real). Like I mentioned in an above post, ppl can arrive at what is true through bad epistemology. I think that's what you're referring to with the Christian apologists who grasp at straws and come up with faulty arguments to attempt to defend the Bible's inconsistencies. Like you, that bugs me, and I wish they'd simply put their hands in the air and admit that they do not know the answer in those cases. John Calvin did this with the apparent contradiction in the Gospel accounts as to when the Last Supper was held. Back in his day, Calvin simply said something like this, "I have sufficient evidence to trust Scripture as a whole, but I cannot explain this particular discrepancy." This problem wasn't dealt with until recently some archaeologists discovered that the folks back then used two different calendars. Read more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13114124 This resolved the discrepancy, but Calvin didn't live to see it. The things is, he didn't try to stretch the evidence to prove his point (to my knowledge). He simply admitted that he didn't know, which is the way of intellectual integrity. I believe skeptical folks respect this much more than all the mental gymnastics. I still don't think the Big Book of Bible Difficulties is a problem b/c there are faulty arguments on each side (Christianity and agnosticism). That's why it's our job to develop our minds to detect illogical arguments wherever we see them. I keep saying that I'm not against SDA per se, but against bad thinking and bad theology in general. We need to call out erroneous thinking when we see it, even if the person using it agrees with us in the overall picture. I want Christian brothers and sisters who will do that for me when I start to string together pieces of evidence in a way that isn't making sense. All truth is God's truth and it will stand up, in the long run, to our questions. I think you'll appreciate str.org b/c it's an organization that values not only (1) where you eventually end up (ontological truth) but equally values (2) the ways in which you get there (epistemological soundness). Finally, Michael, it's helped me to keep in mind that everyone on all sides of this issue is biased. This includes us and skeptical folks as well. We all tend to shut out evidence that contradicts our presuppositions and purposefully seek out only the evidence that agrees with what we already think. This should be humbling to ppl on all sides. Skeptical folks like Michael Shermer like to point out this idea; but most of the time, he fails to adequately apply it to himself as well. So, we're all coming at the Bible with our own slants. It's a bit discouraging, but it's also humbling that at least a part of the process of our truth seeking is out of our hands. This is the part that scares me when I think about it b/c I like to be in control. Finally, the idea of Scripture being God's words... What helps me is to work backwards. Jesus' resurrection confirms the truth of His words. He said that the OT Scriptures point to Him. The historical details of the OT are sometimes unclear and are secondary to the purpose of pointing to Jesus. So, with Joe Skeptic, the resurrection has to be the very first thing that is dealt with, NOT the chronological inconsistencies in Kings and Chronicles. If Joe insists on going there first, I'm not sure there's much we can do... It's no different than the SDAs have done, abandoning a Christo-centric heremeneutic in favor of obsessing about details that have nothing to do with the main Event, Jesus. Dana (Message edited by seekinglight on September 02, 2011) | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 564 Registered: 3-2009 |
Michael, one more thing re: your idea that original documents being error-free is a claim that's unfalsifiable and impossible to verify with absolute certainty. Technically, you are correct, but here's some info. saying that we can have *reasonable* certainty as to the contents of the original docs: http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/EnhancedSG0910Final.pdf?docID=4901 You may have already seen this info, but I thought I'd pass it along, in case you hadn't. | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 376 Registered: 7-2010 |
That makes me wonder what is wrong with simply saying that the recorded histories are just that... histories. Is it possible to just say they are recorded from previous oral accounts and are written according to what the author understood? That would still bear out the prevailing gospel message... that people repeatedly tried to substitute self effort for God and repeatedly failed. It would in no way alter what God revealed about himself and how it all pointed toward Christ (which does agree in all accounts), nor would it affect the plan of salvation. It would also in no way compromise the value of scripture for "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Is there a reason we must contrive so many explanations to prove inerrancy in every little word? It simply looks really bad. The problem is only going to get worse. With the Internet it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to find that the Masoretic, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and Samaritan differ wildly on the dates involved. I have never seen this acknowledged publicly. Archeology is unearthing what are believed to be ancient Bible cities and is beginning to propose that the chronology was probably longer than we thought from the literal reading. Of course, YEC Christians will dispute the dating methods used, but the info is out there nonetheless. Sticking our fingers in our ears, repeating "can't trust science, can't trust science, can't trust science" and arguing about whose "solution" is the best one just isn't going to work anymore. Michael | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 565 Registered: 3-2009 |
No, the "cannot trust science" mantra doesn't work anymore. It's just ridiculous the dogma ppl adhere to. It's b/c there's this idea floating around out there that if Gen 1, for example, is not taken literally, the whole Christian system falls. MJ's quote above hints at this idea of the slippery slope that strictly literalistic Bible readers deeply fear. Having said this, the naturalists are just as dogmatic, also refusing to look at heaps of evidence that contradict their POV. (Message edited by seekinglight on September 02, 2011) | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 566 Registered: 3-2009 |
I hinted at this earlier, and I'm going to state it even more strongly. Sorry if this is too controversial, I cannot help but wonder if the spirit of EGW/Adventism is behind the YEC fear mongering and division it's been causing in the body of Christ. | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 377 Registered: 7-2010 |
Dana, Thank you for the Stand To Reason link. I really have no problem with the New Testament manuscripts, but I have seen the impact of the Erhman stuff on others, so it is a good read even if I don't personally have a problem with the subject. Although my comment about the original autographs can be applied to the NT as well, it was mostly aimed at the OT autographs. Over a millennium of time exists in some cases. Unlike the NT where the gap may be decades, the OT is harder to apply this certainty to. Michael | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 619 Registered: 7-2005 |
Great discussion so far, may I join it? Hope I'll not interfere with something, just a quick note. The biggest problem, highlighted by Ehrman and often evaded by evangelicals, is that we claim inerrancy for a text which we cannot reconstruct 100%. We claim that the Bible is free of error, but our reconstructed text of the Bible is not free of error. We can't actually present a final product which can be evaluated and tested in order to see if it's error free or not. From this angle, inerrancy is unfalsifiable. But I think that, given the claim, the inerrancy claim can be falsified if the text is proved to be historically unreliable, coming from an untrustworthy source, things like this. Just a simple example: if it can be proved that the gospels were not written by eye-witnesses and they were actually written later and by people who are not what we think they are, case closed. The gospels are historical unreliable, are forgeries, written in such a style to give the impression that they are written by eye-witnesses. Inerrancy is gone, and from this point of view, inerrancy is falsifiable. Yes, we can't prove inerrancy because we don't have an inerrant text, but if we have sufficient proofs and reasons to think that the text is reliable, coming from a trusted source, we have good reasons to think that the claim of inerrancy, coming from a trusted source, is true. It's not entirely a leap of faith, it's still based on evidence. Dana, Michael, did you watched Peter Williams talking about evidences that the NT gospels are based on eye-witnesses accounts? I enjoyed greatly a video presentation, I think this is the kind of approach the evangelical church needs more than sticking their the fingers into their ears. Peter William's Lecture Take a look, and if you are interested in the subject, maybe we can correspond by email. Ask Colleen for my email. Delicate subject, that's sure, and painful for many believers. Gabriel | ||
| Michaelmiller Registered user Username: Michaelmiller Post Number: 378 Registered: 7-2010 |
Your link returns a 404 page not found error. Try sharing the URL again. Michael | ||
| Seekinglight Registered user Username: Seekinglight Post Number: 567 Registered: 3-2009 |
Thanks for joining the convo, Gabriel, and for shedding additional light on the inerrancy falsification question. Is this the same lecture you tried to post? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8 | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 620 Registered: 7-2005 |
Yes, Dana, this is the same lecture. Sorry for the unworkable link, here is the correct address Eyewitness Accounts | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 621 Registered: 7-2005 |
I forgot to pass some interesting information There is a group which actually has an inerrant Bible, or at least it claims to have. The group is a movement that attracted many fundamentalist churches into what is called the KJV ONLY position. Something that will help you remember KJV only-ists: J.D. Greear who wrote "Breaking the Islam Code" and some of you may remember him from his involvement in the Gospel Coallition, was raised in the movement and spoke about the fact that they even expressed in songs their faith that only the KJV is the inerrant word of God, the inerrant text. "I dare not trust the NIV But wholly lean on KJV. The NAS is a disgusting mess But old King James, he wrote the best. On C.I Scofield's book I stand All other ones are sinking sand" I bet you know the tune... Dana, you wrote:
Here comes another "gift" from the Adventist spirit to the evangelical world: Dr. Benjamin G. Wilkinson, Adventist scholar, wrote in 1930 the book "Our Authorized Bible Vindicated" which became one of the fundamental books of the KJV-Only position. I spent two days on the beach reading his book on my Kindle(free PDF online). His line of argument? Well, God used the Greek Orthodox Church from the Eastern regions of the Roman Empire (that made me proud that I'm living in this region where the GO is national, huh!)to preserve the text of the NT in the Byzantine type-text, while the Western-type text and the Alexandrian type (list all the old codices on this side, including Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus) was corrupted by (guess who) papacy. It's a catholic conspiration that corrupted the text, God used the Byzantine text to start and fuel the reformation. And the reform went unhindered until Westcott and Hort persuaded the protestant world that other text-types are more reliable, old, closely to the original, than the Byzantine-type. Wilkinson made a lot of baseless accusations that these two guys were involved in some kind of occult practices, arguments that even today are used. The KJV Only is full of the conspiratorial mindset of Adventism, with papacy and his agents corrupting the protestant world. It's not amusing, but I tried to make it look more palatable. Gabriel |
