chapka

I think your question is a bit misleading. I never implied that anyone would try to say the bible was inspired because of its truths. All I said was that people who thought for extratextual reasons that the bible was inspired would privilege its moral lessons over those of other texts.

I carefully avoided making any moral choice between them. My point was that the moral lessons in each are conflicting, and that extratextual reasons influence any choice.

Nor did I ever say, or imply, that it was. What I said was that the text was privileged because of extratextual considerations. In this case it's political ideology rather than religious.

You seem to be examining the non-inerrantist position from an inerrantist point of view. The fundamentalist, inerrantist position is, oversimplified, that we should listen to the Bible because the Bible is true because the Bible says so. Most Christians believe that the Bible is true not because the bible says so but for other, extratextual reasons. In the Catholic case (the largenst non-inerrantist denomination), the inspired nature of the bible is not derived from the book itself, but from the Church's traditions. You may feel that that's an irrational reason to privilege a text, and you may well disagree with basing your morality on that of the medieval popes, but that doesn't mean it's intellectually dishonest--at least not to the same degree the inerrantist position is.

Dr_Paine

Agreed

Fair enough

Agreed; to accept the "inspired nature" of the Bible based upon Church tradition is not necessarily intellectually dishonest; it is rather intellectual abdication. It is irrational as well. It also seems a little infatuated with the past (argumentum ad antiquitatem).

To clarify, I do not defend the inerrantist position; it is untenable. However insisting upon divine inspiration as a unique feature of the Bible, is just as unfounded. However naive, unreasonable, and ridiculous the inerrantist position is, it is a simple, direct - however invalid - epistemology.

Such a believer does not wrestle with the contradictions, silliness, and absurdities of the Bible. He simply accepts it, while rejecting any contravening experiences or evidence. The more intellectual sort contends with the "difficulties" of the text and produces convoluted metaphysical rationalizations in order to ease his cognitive dissonance. In this way he can retain the comfort of the scripture, yet preserve his intellectual integrity... or so he presumes.

chapka

Sorry, but you're still viewing this from a position tainted, I suspect, by overexposure to fundamentalism.

Non-inerrantists don't simply accept the bible blindly, while rejecting any contravening evidence. Fundamentalists try to rationalize contradictions such as the two deaths of Judas discussed elsewhere on this site. Most Christians would simply look at the two passages and say, "These two passages conflict with each other; at least one of them must be wrong." Since what exactly happened to Judas isn't particularly important doctrinally, there's no reason for a believer to be bothered by this. If you asked them what happened to Judas, they'd say "I don't know." They might even use textual criticism to see where each story came from.

Again, you've agreed, I think, that if you want to, you can take moral lessons from the bible, just as from other texts. You say that "insisting upon divine inspiration as a unique feature of the Bible, is . . . unfounded." But that's the point. It's not founded in the bible itself, and it's not necessarily unique.

You may well feel that Christianity itself is wrong. But given Christianity, there's nothing irrational in the way a mainstream Christian approaches the bible. Remember that for most Christians the bible itself is not the sole source of the religious tradition, the way it is for fundamentalists. The belief that the bible is divinely inspired may be baseless, but given that extrinsic belief, there's nothing inherently contradictory or rationalizing about reading the bible for guidance, but still reading critically. If this is the case, then what you're really saying is that "religion is unfounded," which may be true, but isn't relevant to the bible specifically.

Most mainstream Christians do struggle with the text, trying to sort out the "inspired" signal from the "human" noise, while recognizing that the bible is errant. It's the fundamentalists who waste their energy rationalizing over their "simple" epistemology. As in most things, the simple way of understanding is an utter failure. That the mainstream Christian epistemology more closely resembles the nonreligious critical epistemology than the simplistic fundamentalist one doesn't strike me as a criticism.

Dr_Paine

Perhaps


Absolutely; perhaps my contrasting of two approaches (inerrancy and errancy) came across as a praise or compliment to the inerrantist position. Not so, inerrancy is ridiculous on its face. I simply meant to point out that the "errantist" (for lack of a better word) position really possesses no epistemological merit, either?

The authority of the Bible is inconsistent with "trying to sort out the 'inspired' signal from the 'human' noise." It may possess the "inspiring" qualities of a poem or literature, but it can no longer be presumed authoritative, if one must "sort" the wheat from the chaff, as it were. At this point one is simply imposing one's own interpretive schema on the text. Thus, the text is given credibility as it harmonizes with one's preconceived values. Therefore, we have no reason to spare the sacred cow, for it is only an illusion of external validity for our own values and beliefs.---- which is fine, but let's put to rest the notion of biblical authority.

If the Bible requires the external validity of my experiences and reasoning, then it has no intrinsic authority (on this fact, I understand that you agree). I suppose it may be necessary for both an "errantist" and an "inerrantist" to wean themselves from the security of the Bible as an "objective" validation of their internal values. Perhaps, in this regard, it serves them well. It is then, as I stated, "useful," and perhaps comforting. Alas, however, it has no intrinsic authority - no more than say Aesop.

I agree with your perspective, I hope this clears up my poorly articulated position.

Also, I agree this criticism is not exclusive to the Bible; it would apply to any religious text - or any work of philisophy, poetry, or literature for that matter.