Gooch's dad

<sigh> Magus, every time I read one of your posts, I think "did he really mean what he just said?"

Re-read what I asked you, ok? What if I, as a NON-Christian, read the bible and found it to be full of errors? I don't HAVE faith in your God to do things right.

What you are saying is that I need to have faith in order to read the bible, but don't I need to read the bible first in order to get the information necessary to decide whether to have faith?

Just use your head for a minute here, man. This is basic logic. Think of someone who has NEVER heard of Christianity, or only vaguely heard some stories about it, and decides to pick up an English bible and read it. They don't HAVE faith in your God, right? Why should they guess that the original documents of the bible were inerrant?

Magus55

Why does someone who just picks up the Bible have to have it be inerrant, or God doesn't exist? Using your analogy, say someone reads the Bible and notices errors in it. Is it not their fault for dismissing God's existence, just because of a book? Its not until you become a believer that you start understanding its much deeper and perfect meaning. But if you just choose to dismiss it entirely because at first glance, you claim there are errors - then thats your own fault. The OT isn't even the most important part of the Bible ( its very important though), the NT is. Just reading the Gospels is enough to show you the way to Salvation. Once you become a believer, the rest is easier to understand. And again, if you choose to rule out God's existence, just because at first look, you have a problem with part of the Bible - thats your own problem, and needs to be dealt with by you, not God.

Kosh

It's worse than that Kelly! He's saying that the original version 1.0 of the greek and hebrew versions are innerrant. You know, that ones nobody has ever seen for thousands of years? The ones whose content we can only guess at.

Convenient, no?

Magus55

You have no proof that the originals weren't inerrant, whats wrong with assuming they are? You can say they were errant all you want, but until you can prove it ( good luck), its moot. God is perfect, and the original Bible is His word. Logical conclusion based on our beliefs means if He is perfect, His word most likely is too.

That and of the 24,000 original manuscript copies of the Bible combined have less than a .5% error rating, more accurate over the years than any other book in human history - its not a big stretch for us.

Gooch's dad

OK, Magus, I can tell you're trying here. And I really appreciate that. Honestly, I do.

Yours is a fair question--why would I expect the bible to be free of errors and contradictions? Well, because Christians claim that it is the Word of God, right?

So is the NT supposed to be better than the OT? There is much less violence and so forth, I'll agree. But the contradictions are there, and they're right in your face. The first book, Matthew, has a genealogy of Jesus. A bit later, Luke has a genealogy too. They are obviously different. It is as obvious as can be that they are both supposed to be a genealogy of Jesus, through his father Joseph, and they can't even agree on who Jesus's paternal grandfather is.

This isn't just a hyopthetical, Magus. I was maybe 14 or 15 when I picked up a bible and ran across this. I immediately realized that the bible simply could not be presented as 'the Word of God', not in any sense of being error-free.

Are you getting the picture here?

Gooch's dad

C'mon, Magus, we've torn that argument to shreds. There are only a few manuscripts from the first few centuries of Christianity. And even those are copies of copies of copies. Once the process of canonization took place, there was more consistency in the copying process. Big deal. But there aren't 24,000 early Greek manuscripts. Quit tossing out that Josh McDowell crap if you want a serious discussion.

Demigawd

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a "perfect" case of circular reasoning. In other words, in order for the bible to be perfect, you have to believe it's perfect. You can't conclude it's perfect because, well, that's based upon actual observation and understanding. You have to have already made up your mind that it is true and perfect.

Magus55

Well, first here is an explanation for the different geneologies.

http://www.carm.org/diff/2geneologies.htm

You may not like the explanation, but its one nonetheless.

Now, yes i get what you are saying, but i still think its a poor reason to discredit God. Say God did let humans write the Bible basically on their own. God was involved in it since it is primarily about Him, but suppose the contradictions are there due to human writing error. How does that discredit God? You have to look at the overall picture. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of most of the places and events in the Bible. Its irrational to assume the Apostles were just making it up since they did go from being cowards in hiding, to boldly proclaiming Jesus' truth, only to end up dying in very nasty ways. Christianity succeeded, which it never would have done if it was a complete fairy tale. Legends don't start that fast. So it is reasonable to assume the Apostles were telling the truth and described what they saw and heard. Whether there are errors or not, doesn't meant God doesn't exist, or the accounts of Jesus weren't real, it just means humans completely wrote it the best they could with the knowledge and writing ability they had at the time, and there are bound to be a few errors or discrepancies.

Do you throw out your trust in science just because science books or theories end up having errors in them? Humans are fallible, and for an unbeliever - taking the translations of the Bible as perfectly inerrant is a poor approach at trying to understand God. Its accurate enough for its purpose.

Dr Rick

No, {if A, then B} does not mean {if not-A, then not-B}.

Example: "if you jump-off of a tall building, then you will die" does not mean or imply that "if you don't jump-off of a tall building, then you won't die;' maybe you will, maybe you won't. Perhaps if you don't jump-off of a tall building, then I will push you-off of it, or shoot you; either way, the initial statement is true, but the inference you drew about what would happen if you didn't jump is incorrect.

Rick

Gooch's dad

You're forgetting our hypothetical situation--some guy that picks up a bible one day, reads it, finds a contradiction like the geneologies, decides Christianity is wrong, and dies without having anyone explaining otherwise. Focus on that, Magus. What happens to that person? Hmm? Just give me that answer, will you? That was the point of the inerrancy discussion. If modern english texts have errors, then people get doomed to eternal hellfire because of some translation error?

Magus55:
Now, yes i get what you are saying, but i still think its a poor reason to discredit God. Say God did let humans write the Bible basically on their own. God was involved in it since it is primarily about Him, but suppose the contradictions are there due to human writing error. How does that discredit God?

Me: See above. It means that God doesn't care about preserving the inerrancy of his Word.

You have to look at the overall picture. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of most of the places and events in the Bible.

And archeology confirms that a whole lot more of the bible (such as the flood, the exodus, etc, never happened). Some of the NT writers also exhibit very poor understanding of Palestinian geography--Mark, for example, thinks that you go through Bethpage and then Bethany when traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem. That's backwards. Nazareth is described as having cliffs outside of town--there are no cliffs for many miles around. Just a few examples there...

Its irrational to assume the Apostles were just making it up since they did go from being cowards in hiding, to boldly proclaiming Jesus' truth, only to end up dying in very nasty ways. Christianity succeeded, which it never would have done if it was a complete fairy tale.

So are you also willing to accept the other stories of supernatural events from 2000 years ago, such as the miracles performed by Appolonius of Tyana? And by the argument you just presented, you would have to accept Islam as being true.

Legends don't start that fast.

Nonsense. Even Acts records an example that proves you wrong. In Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas were worshipped as incarnations of Greek gods (Zeus and Hermes) because they got a crippled man to walk. Even now legends seem to crop up within a few days of a major event--such as the stories of people surviving the fall of the WTC by floating down on debris.


Do you throw out your trust in science just because science books or theories end up having errors in them?

Science has a method that is designed to weed out the errors that are known to occur--as you say, humans are fallible, which is why scientific claims must be tested by verifying predictions, and opening the hypotheses to falsification. You refuse to open your beliefs to falsification.