The Bible is intended to be a guide to life, that is relatable to all humanity. Given that humans are fallible beings, it only makes sense that the bible would contain errors, written by fallible people, in order for it to be a truly relatable to us.
Thoughts?
In one sense I fully agree… Psalm 51, for instance, was written by someone who had erred - failed deeply, and who was acknowledging and confessing his errors and failures to God, and expressing his deep sorrow for his action. As such, it is imminently relatable to us. Thus it contained a record of this man’s errors. So yes, certainly, in that sense, the Bible would have to contain “errors.”
As the evangelical borderline-fundamentalist that I am, however, I would observe that Psalm 51 would also be a perfect example of such relatable fallibility, one that is contains no errors whatsoever in accurately communicating David’s error, or his appropriate response to his sin.
Certainly the Bible has some minor errors, but I don’t think it is best to characterize the Bible as “a guide to life.”
I like Bruce Metzger’s description of the New Testament:
“They are authoritative, and hence canonical, because they are the extant literary deposit of the direct and indirect apostolic witness on which the later witness of the Church depends.”
Excerpt From
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
Bruce M Metzger
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The Bible is a record of what happened. Some of what happened is a guide for life. The commands of Jesus found in the Last Supper are the best guide for life.
For me it’s a bit of gray areas.
I have never seen any of the original letters. So I have no idea what they said. All I can judge is what we have now and presume it’s really close.
The first thing I bring up is that the Bible is a human thing. No scripture lays out what was scripture and what was not. As far as whole books. There is not a book that says these other 60 something books are also holy scripture. Some examples of this is the fact the book of judge mentions prophecies of Enoch which we don’t have any mentioning of in the Torah and it also mentions satan and Michael arguing over moses body which we don’t have either. Several times the book of Jasher is mentioned and the epistles seem to indicate missing letter by paul. You also have the issue of which source? Dead Sea scrolls? Septuagint? Masoretic and so on.
When you get to actual scripture and not just the book argument there is the issue of proverbial truths vs doctrinal truths vs metaphorical truths. There is issues of seeing ancient people’s world views and beliefs vs reality. Such as no dome, the sun does not revolve around us, mustard seed is not the smallest seed, women bleeding or not at first intercourse is not related to being a virgin, and ect… we see man made beliefs interwoven with scripture. Often you have to sort out what was given as truths vs what was wrote as simply a account of ancient Jewish beliefs and so on.
Finally being inspired by God is not the same thing as being forced into a trance and automatic writing by God .
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