Is the bible inerrant?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I should report you for this. it is against Forum guidelines.

Un, er, the Op is

Is the Bible Inerrant?

the answer is no.

That you believe otherwise is irrelevant.

Now this is news. Perhaps you would like to enlighten me?

Go ahead, quote your citations of proof.

Who cares what other people believe? Ad hominem? Our forefathers believed the earth was flat. Do we believe something because others do? Or do we believe what is right?

Answers the statement itself. Understand the statement itself. Read the passage where the verse is contained in. What was the subject? Was it the authorship of Scripture? Where else does Paul teach this doctrine of yours?

Yes, it is about one verse. One verse out of over 3000. And verses were only constructed in the 13th century. Paul did not write in verses. Paul wrote coherent text. You do him a dis-service by extracting one or two sentences for your own use.

Authorship by the Holy Spirit equates to inerrancy. You keep claiming that I am ignoring the Holy Spirit. Your claim is false. I cannot ignore the Holy Spirit He dwells within me
.
I cannot assert that the Holy Spirit never takes over people. He does, He has me, But that was one very unique occasion . Paul was writing pastoral letters much as any sermon preached in a church. The media is different that is all. I would not claim that my words are directly from Him but they are inspired by Him (and you have never heard me preach so you cannot refute this)

Regardless of your “proofs” from the Scripture that you are claiming about (IOW scripture says I am right because I say so) the reality is different. If you knew the workings of the Holy Spirit you would know this.

I love and respect the Holy Scripture more than you know, but I do not try and make them what they are not. (That is why I confront your views of it)

A thing does not have to be 100% accurate or efficient to function, if that was so 90% of human construction would fail. Scripture is what it is. It is not what you claim it to be.

Richard

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369

The problem with the inerrancy doctrine is not that it exists. If someone needs to believe it to accept Scripture the so be it. That is their choice and belief… What is not acceptable is to enforce that belief onto me or others and to claim that I must believe it also (or ese?)

In doing so they are putting people off both Christianity and Scripture itself. If Scripture does say the things they claim I would not wish to be a part of it. If you want to see the world as broken or a slave to sin, fine. But don’t force me to see things that way.

There is toxicity in the Christian message as promoted by some (fanatical) groups and I do not want to be a part of it. I want people to be Christian and to read Scripture. What I do not want is for people to be burdened down with outrageous claims and demands that are not part of the Christian message,. Christ criticised the Pharisees for laying down unreasonable demands on the people. That is precisely what is happening here. If you want to wear a straight jacket fine, but don’t put me in one.

Richard

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Well, Me being the inerrancy proponent that I am, I generally would not try to force that belief on others.

What I do reserve the right to do, however, is to point out the logical consequences of people’s ideas. All too often I observe people denying inerrancy or any similar infallibility of Scripture, but then turn right around and affirm a Christian doctrine that logically depends on an inerrant Scripture to be held.

Just one random example… You in this very post observed that “Christ criticized the Pharisees for laying down unreasonable demands on the people.” But even this basic claim depends on the veracity of the gospels on this particular point… plenty of liberal scholars would claim that these cannot be ttruly traced to Jesus as trustworthy representation of Christ’s own words, but that these sentiments were ideas of the early church backwards projected into Christ’s mouth due to their own theological agenda. If you weren’t assuming that the Scripture - when it records Jesus’ criticism of the pharisees - was essentially true and in some sense “non-erroneous” when stating these events, then your observation would be meaningless, no?

For another example, I once had an extended conversation with someone that denied Christ’s inerrancy… claimed that gifted as he was with remarkable insight, he was still a product of his own time, got some things right and others wrong, and that he was just as fallible as any other human being… but then my friend turned right around and affirmed with the strongest terms a belief in eternal life, since Jesus claimed this would happen.

I for one would never demand that my friend embrace a belief in Jesus’ inerrancy in his claims… but I did reserve every right to point out that, if he did deny Jesus “inerrancy”, and claimed that Jesus could and did often err, often absorbing false beliefs of his culture… then how could my friend know with such certainty that Jesus’ claims about eternal life weren’t just another of Jesus numerous errors?

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Commonly meant by whom? Not what is commonly meant by YECs? inerrancy as a word, and concept, stands on its own independent from how one does or doesn’t understand the genre of certain parts of Scripture… best example tht comes to mind… B. B. Warfield was one of the staunchest defenders of inerrancy and yet I believe was open to evolution to some extent. Biologos even has an article on the very topic:

B.B. Warfield, Biblical Inerrancy, and Evolution - BioLogos

Warfield couldn’t have been an inerrancy proponent because he supported, or was at least open, to Darwinian evolution? :confused:

And just because Augustine, similarly, would not have fit within the strict YEC framework, we should deny his clear statements about his beliefs in the inerrancy of Scripture?

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I don’t think they do. For instance, your example of what Jesus said to the Pharisees doesn’t logically depend on inerrancy. You yourself pointed out the reason why:

One can affirm inerrancy while holding very different views about what a text means and how it relates to historical fact (@Vinnie demonstrated that in spades with Augustine’s views). In the gospels as well as in Genesis, inerrantists have wildly divergent views. Most will not expect the words of Jesus to be exact quotes. Some will allow the gospel writers to rearrange material, collapse multiple events into one, compress various speeches into one. Some even allow that Matthew may have incorporated other genres, such as midrash, that others mistake for historical narrative (much as is argued with Genesis 1). How much poetic license is granted and how much the gospels may deviate from strict historical accuracy varies depending on the individual interpreter, not on whether they affirm inerrancy.

That someone affirms inerrancy doesn’t tell you what they consider an error or what they allow as acceptable in the Bible. Similarly, if a person says they are against immorality, that doesn’t tell you their position on any particular moral issue; it doesn’t give you their idea of what is moral. Inerrancy is a term that has a ring of exactness to it, but because there is no common agreement on what it means, it is no improvement over simply affirming the Bible’s God-derived authority and trustworthiness.

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Well put, Marshall. Too many seem to define “ denies inerrancy “ with “disagrees with me.”

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How dare you tell me what I can and cannot believe!

It is fallacious to think that because I do not believe the Bible to be inerrant that I must therefore believe non of it to be true! That is part of your beliefs not mine.

it does not follow that because I do not believe inerrancy, I must believe every cockamany doctrine or biblical criticism.

Who said anything about doubting the words of Christ? Not me!

I have not claimed. ever, that you cannot believe in inerrancy. I may say that I think you are wrong, but that is not the same thing. Kindly grant me the same privelage without any caveat or claimed consequence. My faith is between me and God and has nothing to do with you.

Richard

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All the evidence you need is in this thread, which I presume you have read, so why throw out false statements?

It shouldn’t be:

For never was any prophecy produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

The Old Testament’s definition of a prophet is anyone who speaks for God. The New Testament writers were speaking for God, so they qualify as prophets, and thus they were being impelled (it’s the word used of wind driving a sailing ship forward) by the Holy Spirit.

Who said anything about authorship?

It is authoritative. Teachers of the church that were given by the Holy Spirit wrote under the aegis of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would guide the church into all truth – that is what/who the Fathers are, so to ignore them is to ignore the Spirit.

That’s what you’re imagining here, not what’s happening. It’s clear that you don’t know what’s happening since you keep making false statements.

Inspiration does not equal inerrancy, it only equals authority. You link authority to inerrancy just the way YEC does, except you deny inerrancy and therefore deny inspiration. That position would have made no sense whatsoever to the ancients while scripture was being set down; you’re forcing it onto the text.

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You’re making the same mistake of forcing a modern view onto the scriptures.

Nothing depends on the “veracity of the gospels” or of any other part of scripture, it depends on the authority of the text. Moderns think truth rests on having all the details right, but that can’t be projected back onto the ancient worldview(s) of the scriptures; to those when the scriptures were first given to their original audiences, truth depended on the authority of the one speaking. The question wasn’t “Is the science and every word in this accurate?”, it was “Does this writer speak for God?”

The reality is that the worldview of the scriptures doesn’t care in the least about getting all the details right, it cares about the message being right. Yes, the message rests on the words, but the same message could be told with different words.

Because the message does not rest on the understanding of history or cosmology or any kind of science of any of the writers or speakers, it rests on the conclusions.

The argument above is one I’ve heard from people insisting that all the parables in the Gospels were actually historical things Jesus used to teach with since if they hadn’t actually happened they were just fiction.

It’s also used to claim far more than the scriptures do – nowhere in the scriptures is there any assertion that all the details are correct – when it is claimed that if Jesus spoke of something then that something must have been historically accurate.

No, we should avoid using a term that means radically different things to different people and thus ends up not having a set meaning; it’s an invitation for people to hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.

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Ah, I see the problem now. For real communication you need to speak the same language and it appears that I do not know your dialect. Is there an online dictionary, thesaurus or translator?
Some of the words in question:
Scripture, authority, context, inspiration, prophecy, belief, Christian, improvement, theft, law,

I would put principle but it doesn’t seem to appear in your vocabulary.

There are probably more.

Richard

Ps oh I forgot lying. It appears to mean anything that doesn’t conform to your views. Is that right?

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Wasn’t this one of the factors that determined if a given writing was in the canon? With the biggest factor being was the given writing being read in the church (see previous factor to determine why it was being read).

I am reminded of the verse that speaks of “itching ears”.

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Really? Who are you trying to kid?

Now you are reaching.

I am amazed you can even think this is valid let alone write it expecting others to. You, as a linguist and scholar should know better than to pervert meanings to fit your usage. You are abusing the very thing you claim to honour.

Paul is in no way, shape or form a prophet. The Gospels are not prophecy. Torah is not prophecy, neither is the wisdom writings, or the other basically historic texts. I do not know who you think you are fooling other than yourself.

Admit it, you need scripture to hold the authority you claim for the rest of your doctrinal position to be validated. Fine, if that is how you need to see scripture then so be it, but do not claim any sort of superiority or condemnation over anyone who dares not to follow your lead.

I abhore your use of individual verses. How you can do it and still claim scholarship is beyond me. They must teach contextual understanding in accademia.

Still, I am wasting my time here. Ad-hominum reigns and I do not fit your viewpoint so I am automatically ignored.

Richard

PS

You have just squashed your own viewpoint.

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I haven’t been following the ins and outs of this thread, mostly because I don’t want to. But I do have a question for the adherents of inerrancy. Do you believe that, say, Ecclesiastes is right in 9:5 (‘The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing’) or 9:10 (‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going’)?

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And you stopped short of one of my favorites (9:11)

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Not that I want to detract from your question to the champions of inerrancy here … but I fancy I can predict the response, having seen it so many times already. So while the crickets are still chirping, I’ll chip in with this speculation: For verses like these they will suddenly renew their interest in and accomodation for context and viewing a text in its proper perspective, and with all due considerations for who uttered it, and when, and what were they really teaching by it. In other words, all the critical scholarship that is scornfully flung away the moment a favorite ‘plain’ passage is in view will suddenly be brought in to rescue - or dismiss - the similarly ‘plain’ meaning of less favorite passages.

And thus their inerrancy is revealed as the proxy war for the real issue: putting some favored understanding on the pedestal of protection, rather than scriptures themselves, much less He to whom the scriptures point. I do aspire toward following Him as the center of focus - but hopefully minus the pretensions about my infallibility in doing so, at least on my better days.

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It shouldn’t do. If anyone is using the word “lying” to mean anything that doesn’t conform to their views, they are using the word incorrectly.

The word “lying” concerns matters of fact, not matters of opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no-one is entitled to their own facts.

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Of course that doesn’t depend on inerrancy…. I thought I was careful with my words…

I was simply observing that for this very particular example, one must embrace, conclude, or at minimum assume the veracity of the Bible on this particular point: that this particular statement of Jesus must be “non-erroneous” (I.e., a true representation of what he said) if one is going to use it as a basis for further argument, exhortation, or belief.

If Scripture’s record of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees is false, or even significantly dubious, on this point, then one simply can’t use it as a premise for another argument or as a basis for some other belief.

I was then extrapolating from that the observation that there are indeed Christian beliefs that, at minimum, similarly depend on Christ’s inerrancy when he taught on said topic.

Can we agree that far?

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In short? Yes.

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Well, this inerrancy adherent would hope to be sure that I always am examining all of scripture “in its proper perspective, and with all due considerations for who uttered it, and when, and what were they really teaching by it.” Not sure what is behind the implication that I don’t do this, or do it selectively.

Why wouldn’t I use this basic approach to every passage of scripture I use? And what specifically would make you suspect that I don’t?

Secondly, what in the world does this have to do with “critical scholarship”? I utterly reject the basic presuppositions, approaches, and methods of most critical scholarship in general even though I fully embrace consideration of original author, intent, context, and the like in any and every examination of any part of Scripture.

Part of my perspective about inerrancy discussion, for what it is worth, is the very opposite observation… that those who deny inerrancy or full infallibility of Scripture, I have observed, often still seem somehow to implicitly assume the utter and complete veracity of those parts of scripture that affirm their favored doctrines, while discounting the disfavored doctrines due to the fallibility of the authors.

I can’t count how many times I’ve interacted with someone that affirmed that we should love our neighbors, affirmed future resurrection, affirmed Jesus second coming, etc., and appealed to Jesus’ words as the basis for that…. And then turned right around and denied his statements about hell or God’s judgment in the basis that Jesus “was just a product of his time and he simply inherited the erroneous doctrines of 1st century Judaism.”

No issue at all if someone wants to deny inerrancy or infallibility of scripture, but if one does so, I’d submit that they should be far more tentative in embracing many of the traditional Christian doctrines they embrace with such vigor… how do they know that those very doctrines that they love so much aren’t just as riddled with error as those doctrines or parts of the Bible they reject on the same basis?

Second coming? Future resurrection? Forgiveness of our sins? How to be justified/forgiven? Eternal life? Being reunited with loved ones who have died? How does one know, exactly, that these doctrines aren’t just as riddled with human error as any other part of a fallible, prone-to-error scripture? Were the authors magically prevented from inserting fallacious and baseless ideas that they simply inherited from the culture around them when they wrote about these doctrines?

My objection is the basic logical inconsistency… essentially how often I see people those that deny any infallibility or inerrancy of scripture adhere most firmly to a traditional Christian belief on apparently no further basis than, “The Bible tells me so.”

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It is this sort of argument where inerrancy fails .The "all or nothing " principle that states, if you are going to criticise (doubt) any of Scripture you must criticise (doubt) all of it. What it fails to understand is why any of it could be queried. It is not about picking and choosing, it is more about plausibility and reality. If Scripture claims that every person who is not a Christian is evil, and reality shows different then you have a choice of two
either scripture is wrong
or
You are misunderstanding what scripture is saying.

The problem with people who claim in errancy is that they also claim a perfect understanding or that Scripture can be an authority on this or that subject.

In truth is is not such a cut and dried option between inerrancy and validity.

The writings of Paul are influences by Paul’s pharisaic background, they have to be, it was part of who he was. But Christianity does not embrace all of Judaism, especially its view of free will and/or divine influence (good or evil). So to claim Paul as inerrant you have to embrace his pharisaic beliefs. Likewise Old Testament Scripture is going to be based on Judaism and its “commentary” will include the same controlling God.

Just because I do not accept the reality of early Genesis does not automatically mean I reject the reality of the Gospels. Just because I reject Paul’s Pharisaic beliefs does not mean I reject all of his insights on Christ and Christendom.

Carte blanche does not work!. All of nothing does not work. Scripture does not need to be 100% accurate to function.

I am not going to become a male chauvenist just to satisfy inerrancy. Nether am I going to judge or condemn my fellow humans just because Scripture seems to say so.

A doctrine stands or falls by its own merit, not by who or where it comes from. If it is wrong then it is wrong, even if someone claims Scripture says it. That is not a good enough reason to be morally or practically wrong.

Richard.

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??? :confused:

I don’t think it is quite so clear cut…. Peter is recorded in Acts as quoting the wisdom literature (Psalms), and regarding the author thereof (David) as a prophet, no? And Deuteronomy itself describes Moses as a prophet, no?

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