Can God author a text with errors?

[Vinnie]

< Insert made-up standard here >

[Terry_Sampson]

Origins explain how; they don’t explain why “ought” binds.

[Terry_Sampson]

The pressing question, IMO, is: what happened to Jack Dawkins’ “brute lovelessness”? And another: What is the fossil of “ought”?

[Argon]

This topic is adjacent to the question: How can we know that we are living in the best of all possible worlds?

[St.Roymond]

@Vinnie

If God could use such imperfect humans to accomplish his will, to establish a lasting covenant, to deliver His Laws, to build the nation of Israel and to finally build His Church, why on earth could He not use imperfect scripture?

Quite so.

@Vinnie

@RichardG

It seems there is a reluctance to think that Scripture could be human made, despite the fact that it never claims anything else.

It is certainly the product of human hands but I don’t think “it never claims anything else” is sustainable.

I have to agree.

@Vinnie

One book in our canon does tell us scripture is God breathed

And another says “men moved by God”, which as far as I can see gives us a definition of “God-breathed” – god prompted them to write.

@Vinnie

This is what Stanley Porter (2023) wrote (The Pastoral Epistles A Commentary on the Greek Text --which argues for Pauline authorship btwt).

Nice analysis – I lean the same way, though I couldn’t have put it as well.

@Vinnie

there seems to have been a trajectory moving towards a more universal Creator

It’s right there in the Abraham cycle: the promise of making his descendants a great nation was given with a purpose, namely that all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
When you look at it from the perspective of second-Temple Judaism, which noted the three great spiritual rebellions (Eden, pre-FLood, and Babel) the whole point of the story looks to be Yahweh gathering all humans to Himself.

@Vinnie

And truth be told, an exegete possesses the literacy level of a rock if they read the entire Old Testament and think that God is not described as compassionate, merciful and forgiving throughout.

Definitely – it wasn’t sloppy scholarship that led more than one translation committee to call the word חֶסֶד (khesed) the central word of the OT; it can be translated as “steadfast love”, “unchanging love”, “grace”, and similar terms.

[St.Roymond]

@Argon

How can we know that we are living in the best of all possible worlds?

In philosophy class (third year) we invented the Dutch philosopher Gerhard DeHoors, who held that “This is one of all possible worlds”.
(The name was chosen to make a joke, accusing some of “putting Descartes before DeHoors”.)

[Vinnie]

@St.Roymond

Nice analysis – I lean the same way, though I couldn’t have put it as well.

I suspect few can put things as well as Stanley Porter.

[Bill_II]

@RichardG

No

Forcing a modern view requires rejecting the original view so to me it is the same thing.

@RichardG

Clearly you would rather justify the text than reject it.

“Not I said the duck”, You are confusing me with the many others.

@RichardG

Is that an “oh dear”?

Not from me. We are probably closer than you think. I go for a progressive appreciation of God which requires accepting what a earlier text says at face value but knowing our understanding has been changed over time.