It is hyperbole, but it also isn’t: it depends on whether the hearer gets the message. The real message is that the intent of the Law as far as righteousness goes is deeper than anyone has imagined or probably even can imagine – and in that sense it isn’t hyperbole, it’s saying that if you want righteousness by the Law you’ll end up with no eyes or hands or arms or legs or ears or nose or mouth… or even heart or guts or brain!
BYTW, I really wish they wouldn’t translate γέεννα (GEH-en-ah) as “hell”; “Gehenna” isn’t hell, or at least isn’t referring to our concept of Hell which has come more from Greek and Persian mythology than from the scriptures.
In common versions of such discussions, I presume you mean. In grad school we’d work with three or four different definitions of a different word because the writers being cited had different definitions. It was a lesson pounded into our heads in not just language courses but philosophy: always, always, and always investigate what a particular author means by a certain word, because four different writers over a spread of four centuries (or even decades) can and often will mean four different things by it, and if you don’t recognize those different meanings then anything you say about that word is just so much flapping of lips or scribbling with ink.
It’s something that made history of philosophy and history of theology and even just ordinary history agonizing from time to time as different writers used subtly different meanings for a word. I wish I could recall some examples, but there were times when it became evident that an author was quoting some thinker from a previous generation but wasn’t using some word to mean the same thing, that the meaning had drifted and the writer didn’t realize it (which made catching ourselves in that error easier to admit because ‘great’ thinkers before us made the same error).
I like that! It’s just what I was thinking as I read your comment to @Dale about how words have different meanings from one philosopher to the next. “Well, that’s why concepts are better to consider than words”
Words are essential, but concepts are outstanding.
Speaking of philosophy, what a concept it is to consider how an uncaused cause is unobservable by nature.
From Article 10 of the Chicago Statement of biblical inerrancy:
inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts which no longer exist, but which, “can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy”
Errors in our Bible thus do not falsify the statement/definition of inerrancy provided. I just wanted to point out one can be an inerrantist while also accepting errors in all currently circulating copies of the bible. Hence my original question why inerrancy is even important.
It’s important to know that it is trustworthy to give us want God wants us to receive. If we start with the presupposition that it is not trustworthy, then it won’t get read very much and much of importance will be neglected.
I understand and I do agree. This is why I am agnostic about Biblical Inerrancy; it is enough for me to conclude that, for instance, the gospels are human documents that have been preserved by God enough to communicate His message about salvation. Hence the whole Bible taken as a general revelation rather than needing every last detail to be 100% scientifically correct on a surface-level reading.
I very much would like the Bible to be 100% free of errors (and I’ll admit I have heard very plausible explanations from evangelical inerrantists to just about every point and issue I could think of), but I think I’m personally too skeptical to accept the claim that Bible is (or must be) inerrant period. Obviously this conclusion is not enough for many evangelical scholars, and I do respect that. But I do believe my view is shared by many Christians and also a majority of Catholics if I am correct, and does not somehow make me sub-Christian or anything of the sort
How many places does it claim to be speaking as God? Many. Did Jesus treat the OT as authoritative? Yes. How many sweet saints have been edified and strengthened by it without putting themselves judgmentally over it?
And those without humility before scripture can miss a lot in their industriousness to highlight what they find wrong with it. Like unhitching themselves from the Psalms, for instance. Or even Lamentations.
I’d say parts of the Bible falsely claim to speak for God a number of times. Re-Reading the Old Testament in light of the person of Jesus makes it hard for me to think otherwise.