Is the bible inerrant?

Faith & Science Conversation
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When those outside and within our faith both see the same thing that we don’t see, humility demands that we at least consider the possibility that we might be the ones in error.

I’m nervous whenever someone can’t see any reason why they would need Jesus aside from what their distant ancestors did. As if without knowing Genesis, they’d consider themselves perfect. How can such a person truly repent? They seem to be passing the blame on to others, just as Human and Liv did in Eden. Rather than learning from that story, they’re stuck replaying it.

I think those who read the story as telling us who to blame are worse off with Genesis than others without Genesis who can still say “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Saying the Christians who disagree with you are motivated by vanity and pride and deceived by demons does make it hard to ever hear correction. It also makes it hard to see your words arising…

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This. A thousand times this. Marshall’s whole post is excellent, though, and needs to be repeated and responded to.

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I just love dogmatic answers…there is soo much authority in saying “nope, you are wrong, pigs fly”!

Despite that on both sides, the undeniable reality is, evidence being compiled in support of a scientific approach to creationism.

For Christians this is useful because it means that they have an ever growing amount of real science that is consistent with a normal reading of language in the bible.

That rapidly growing scientific evidence groups like AIG have discovered, allows Christians to be sure that what we read in scripture is not a fairytale or myth. These are not fabled stories of naive hope, they are an historical witness for: creation, the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah, the mosaic sanctuary, the life of Christ and his atonement for sin through death on a cross, salvation of the human race, and restoration of a world corrupted/ruined by sin.

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Dear Richard,
yes, you are correct, we will just have to agree to disagree on matters such as evolution.
I definitely do not put God to the test, the fact remains that the many and varied Bible passages that we read on the way to Church each Sunday, proved to be what the sermon of the service was about on most occasions, without any prior knowledge of what the preacher was planning for the service. My family and I know that happened, God knows it happened, whether you believe or not does not change the reality.
I certainly DO NOT believe in any way shape or form that our Righteous Lord and Saviour would do anything deceptive, and as far as I am aware, I have not ever suggested such.

I think I need to make one thing clear here, I know that I am a worthless sinner, I do not pretend to be better than you or anyone else. I am humbled by the grace and Love,bestowed on me and everyone else by our Loving God.

I do not understand why you appear to think I am a “Reds under the beds” theology conspiracy theorist. It is a Biblical reality that Paul informs us of the spiritual wickedness in high places that seeks to keep each one of us from knowing God and salvation. (Did I not quote Ephesians to this end?)

Matthew 5:17-18 New King James Version

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

I do not seek to judge anyone, I am not worthy or capable of doing so. I do not expect you “to just comply” though I do expect you to consider my beliefs with an open mind.

God bless,
jon

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Thus is one of the most unfortunate claims thrown by athose individuals at Creationists.

To be honest, the claim of deceptiveness is only valid because the secular world has developed a model of our origins that are at odds with the normal reading of language in the bible (or any other piece of literature for that matter). To make claims normal reading and comprehension are deceptive simply because nsturalism says its wrong, that doesnt change the recorded facts. The bible is absolutely known to be at least 2500 years old (some of its writers witness is clearly over 3000 years). Some individuals here would rather deny that Moses was a real man and prophet of God, turn the story of Moses into a fictional metaphor and make that indicative of their entire Christian foundation. We talk about inconsistency in science…how about inconsistency in their own faith. Even Christ clearly preached a real Noahs flood in Mathew 24. The Apostle Peter repeats that sermon. Genre aelrguments simply do not work there especially when we consider the detail of the flood account in Genesis (peoples ages, days, depth of floodwaters, rainbow…the flood account is clearly an historical narrative…not poetry!)

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Dear Marshall,
thank you for your post.

Yes, and I have most definitely looked into that possibility at length, and realised that the world we live in has many people working in rebellion against God and against His revealed Word.

But what have I said that makes you write I "can’t see any reason why they would need Jesus aside from what their distant ancestors did"?
I am a sinner, I need Jesus gracious gift of salvation like everyone else on Earth.
The truth of the matter is that in Genesis, God reveals how the creation that was initially ‘very good’, but then became under the curse due to human rebellion against His command.

WHY do you appear to interpret what I believe as blame?
Isn’t it so that our Loving God informs us in Genesis how the creation came to be the way it is, under a curse at what we now describe as the fall of mankind?

Well, Marshall, I am sorry if I have offended you, that is most definitely not my intention.
I am being honest and I hope boldly stating the situation as I truly believe it to be, after much deliberation, soul searching, scientific research and thought on the matter.
There will of course be many other reasons also why many Churches have become compromised with belief in both ‘deep time’ and evolution other than vanity and pride.

I have just read a fascinating article by Peter Howe that puts the situation with evolution probably better than I can express:

"For the supposed evolutionary process to work, evolutionists are forced to posit millions, even billions of years. For Theistic evolutionists, the problem of reconciling long-age views with the Biblical witness is acute. Fossils testify to death, violence, suffering, and disease - for example bone cancer in dinosaurs - supposedly millions of years before mankind arrived. This is completely at odds with the Bible’s picture of an originally good world, ruined by the consequences of humanity’s sin.
The dilemma does not exist for those who understand that the bulk of the fossil record was formed during the flood. That is, more than 1,500 year after the world had already commenced its groaning in bondage as a consequence of the fall.
Some have sought to justify their long age views by pointing out that Romans 5:12 primarily refers to human death. However, the problem remains, because human (Homo sapiens) fossils have now been evolutionary ‘dated’ to 330,000 years old. That is, long age views entail human death before Adam sinned.
By placing all of these ‘bad things’ in the created order before Adam’s sin, evolutionary long age chronology completely contradicts the Bible’s account. Scripture teaches that sin - and its consequences, suffering, bloodshed and death - were an intrusion into God’s ‘very good’ creation. Sin and death came after creation, not with it.
It further follows that if there is no link between evil, including ‘natural evil’, and Adam’s sin, humankind cannot be held responsible for the evil that exists. Sin, suffering, and death are simply ‘brute facts’ to be endured in this world, and the Bibles vision of creation’s future restoration to Edenic perfection (Isaiah 11:6-9; Romans 8:19-25; Revelation 21:1-05) is only a pipedream.
There is no need for forgiveness, then, and thus no need for Christ’s atoning work to make forgiveness possible. But as Douglas Kelly points out,

“The entire significance of the atoning work of Christ as the Last Adam, lies in His reversal of the sin of the first Adam, which caused all the disorders that result in death.”

Thus Richard, I am unable to accept ‘deep time’, evolution or Theistic evolution as anything other than false teachings.

Regarding deep time, well again, I believe that the Bible is inerrant and as such I believe that the genealogies can be reliably used to get an approximate idea of when the creation was made by God.

It is disappointing that my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord that identify as Theistic evolutionists must perform, (to borrow a term from Mervin,) quite strenuous ‘mental gymnastics’ to maintain their TE belief and explain away:

  1. the presence of DNA in ancient fossils such as DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old, and
  2. the bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, and
  3. the decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly harmful mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago, and
  4. the data for ‘‘mitochondrial Eve’ are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago, and
  5. the very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromoisome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years ago, and
  6. many fossil bones ‘dated’ at many millions of years old are hardly mineralised, if at all, and
  7. the presence of dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (haemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen, histones) in fossils are NOT consistent with their supposed more than 65 million year age, and
  8. the lack of 50:50 racemisation of amino acids in fossils ‘dated’ at millions of years old, whereas complete racemisation would occur in thousands of years.
  9. the almost complete lack of clearly recognizable soil layers anywhere in the geologic column.
  10. the rate of erosion of coastlines, horizontally. e.g. Beachy Head, UK, loses a metre of coast to the sea every six years.

and I could list many, many more…

God bless,
jon

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Pick any one of these topics, and start a new thread, preferably with references other than just apologetic sites. Then we shall see what is explained away.

Same as above. The is zero scientific evidence for a young earth.

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Kind of like yours?

I would certainly love to see some.

And the YEC folks are actually slowly coming around to the realization that the only way to explain the global flood is to invoke a miracle which takes it out of the realm of “scientific.” This is based on the failure to address the heat problems.

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No it does not.

The idea that oe man could ruin the whole of God’s “perfect” creation is abominable. And the notion that anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken is so far off as to be laughable. Some of my most trusted friends have no faith at all.

It is not that people do not sin, it is only that they are not compelled to by some ancient figure who has no relation at all to them. Sin is almost unavoidable which is why Christ came. Not to restore a fallen humanity but to reassure us that God does not require the perfection we, ourselves, demand of ourselves. Instead He offers forgiveness for the mistakes we inevitably make so that we can continue a relationship with Him.

Richard

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Dear Ron, but that claim is clearly in error, there are many very well credentialed PhD scientists in a broad range of disciplines that would categorically disagaree, such as:

a) Dr Raymond V. Damadian, M.D.,the Pioneering inventor of magnetic resonance imaging MRI, in USA and

b) Prof. J. Rendle-Short (1919–2010) Pediatrics, and was Foundation Professor and Head of the Department of Child Health in the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, and

c) Prof. Richard Porterwas Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.

to name but a few.from around the world.

God Bless,
jon

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My father used to summarise the story of Adam and Eve like this:

  • God: “What have you done?”
  • Adam: “It was that wife that you gave me.” Blame the wife and blame God.
  • Eve: “The serpent deceived me.” Blame the demon. “I need deliverance ministry.”
  • And the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on…

And what do we do? Do we learn the lesson, or do we do this instead?

  • God: “What have you done?”
  • Us: “It was original sin.” Blame Adam and Eve…
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The fact that they are credentialled PhD scientists means that they should know better than to endorse claims that can be falsified with nothing more than high school science, a pocket calculator, and a couple of quick Google searches. Non-scientists can be excused on the grounds of ignorance when they talk nonsense. PhD scientists do not have the luxury of that excuse.

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Dear Richard,

I find it difficult to fully comprehend where you are coming from.in your post at:

The historical account of the creation and fall of Adam the first man in Genesis is clear for all to see. I don’t know why you are unable to see what is so clearly written, even a small child can understand the basic thrust of the Genesis historical account of creation,the fall, and the flood.

But I have never suggested such a thing!

I’ve noticed on more than one occasion that posts from the Theistic evolution camp have a common failing, that is, they appear to make absolutely unjustified accusations against a fellow Christian in ways that state a grossly blatant untruth (I can only speculate that is based on an assumption they have made), and then they rail against that untruth they have written as if the Christian they are aiming their venom at had actually said what they claim!

To be clear here, WHAT exactly makes you believe that I think that, “anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken”???

But Richard, Adam is the FIRST man, we are ALL related to Adam, he is our distant approximate, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, great, great, great, great great, great, great, grandfather Give or take a few or many ‘greats’.

We’re all related, every man, woman and child on Earth is family, however distant, and all are related to Noah through the global flood population bottleneck that greatly reduced genetic diversity and drastically shortened life spans after that global event.

Well yes, I agree that sin is unavoidable for every human on Earth ever, except for Adam and Eve and Jesus.
Adam and Eve were innocent before God prior to their rebellion against His command to NOT eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But once Adam and Eve crossed that line of disobedience and knew good and evil, the cat was out of the bag, and there is no way of putting it back, (they could not unknow what they then knew, they realised they were naked, prior to the disobedience they were innocent and blameless before God), hence we all inherit the sin nature from Adam.
That is why Jesus came incarnate to Earth to rescue us all from eternal separation from Him, through His selfless sacrifice to pay the penalty of the wages of sin that is death.

God bless,
jon

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Given that a selective list of names does not constitute scientific evidence, we are still at zero.

But if you seek to legitimize appeal to authority, then YEC is hopeless, as the vast majority of scientists, including Christians, understand the Earth to be ancient. Creationists cannot stop obsessing with mainstream biology and geology, but science does not reciprocate the attention. YEC is fringe pseudoscience and researchers spare no time for it.

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Dear Ron,
I see that as with some others on this website, we will just have to agree to disagree.

It is clear from your posts that you do not accept that ‘deep time’ and evolution are contrived deceptions.
I once believed as you do, but my eyes were opened to the truth and I now understand the reality that is as clearly described in Genesis.
God spoke the creation into existence thousands of years ago, not millions or billions, but thousands.
The whole constructed ‘deep time’ edifice is based on spurious reasoning that resists revealing the truth, at any cost.

As it happens that you do not provide a shred of evidence or reasoning to support your denial that evolution and ‘deep time’ are false teachings, there is precious little to be gained from a back and forth exchange on this forum.

However, in contrast to your lack of supporting evidence, I offer the following, and warmly encourage you to check out the video below.
From the video page itself is the following text:
Most scientists don’t realize that evolution is not, in fact, observable science.

These are bold claims! But are they defensible? Join us as Dr Grocott (himself a former evolutionist) explains why he believes evolution is a fairytale—and provides some fascinating supporting evidence in this video at:

Ron, I truly wish you well and hope that like me, you come to realise the veracity of Genesis as accurate historical narrative of the creation event.

God bless,
jon

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If the world hates me,
because of my conviction that the Bible is true,
because I believe the Genesis Creation account as true history,
because I believe that God brought a global flood on Earth,
because I believe that deep time and evolution are a lie,
I count it as a blessing, although I am not worthy, because the world hates Jesus also.

God bless,
jon

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  • I don’t know how hopeless it is, after all selective appeal to authority confirms the three dimensional universe consisting of a dome-covered flat earth surrounded by water, as described by Everett Fox’s 1995 translation of The Five Books of Moses, and by @DOL’s book The Bible & Ancient Science: Principles of Interpretation.
  • re: selective appeal to authority: It is unfortunate when the selection fails to mention Paul Lauterbur. the Chemist, and Peter Mansfield. the Physicist, who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology oor Medicine for the work which made Magnetic Resonance Imaging possible.
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Hi Terry,
yes, I could have listed many, many other scientists.

But in the case of the Nobel Prize for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, it is indeed a sad reflection on the Nobel Prize selection committee that Dr Damadian was excluded, (one can only assume, because he is a Christian who believes the Bible), even though there is capacity within the prize for three persons.

The omission of Dr Damadian from being a co recipient of the prize was widely viewed by many involved in MRI research including many secular scientists as very poor form on the part of the Nobel Prize selection committee because without Dr Damadian’s pioneering work with MRI to identify cancerous cells, the work of the other two (Lauterbur and Mansfield), whose contributions refined the image quality generated would not have any opportunity to occur.

God bless,
jon

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It gets a little more complicated. While Damadian definately did pioneering work in MRI, ultimately his method of imaging was a dead end, and is not used in current machines. I wonder if the reason he was slighted for the Nobel prize was not his religious beliefs, but rather his tendency toward self promotion as well as his financial dealings concerning his work, neither of which is looked highly upon by the Nobel committee.

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I quoted what I was responding to. In brief, “the opening chapters of Genesis explain … precisely WHY we need Jesus,” but I should also add the next sentence: “Without the Old Testament, the gospel makes little sense as to WHY we need to be saved.” If we acknowledge our own sinfulness, we already have a very sensible reason to admit our need to be saved without looking back to Genesis.

Many people accept the Bible as inerrant while allowing that genealogies should be read according to ancient standards, not our own. It’s not an error, they’d say, if Matthew or Moses leaves out generations or uses numbers for different purposes than preserving historical fact. Inerrancy doesn’t inevitably lead to a young earth.

Yes, a small child would know what the Eden story was. It has a talking snake, mystic fruit that gives knowledge or eternal life, and a creature sculpted from dust and enlivened by a breath. Obviously it’s a fable or fairy tale. That’s what they’d think based on the text alone, if they hadn’t inherited a bunch of traditions on how to read it differently from children’s Bibles or trusted adults.

Of course, just because that’s what a small child living today would think doesn’t make it right. We’re probably better off doing the hard work of digging into the text, examining its historical and canonical context and making use of what experts see who have devoted decades to studying (and being able to study) the text.

In the end, we may come to view it as telling history, but as creatively as Jesus’ story of the vineyard tells history. Or we may view it as a prophetic look at who human beings really are. Or we might see both present on different layers and more besides. None of this will depend on whether we call Scripture inerrant, since inerrancy still allows God to speak through different genres of writing. In fact, if we use Jesus’ words as a guide, God seems to particularly enjoy teaching us truth through fiction.

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