svensky

BTW i'm not going to waste time looking at the biblical errancy news letter, i've looked at it in the past, and again, you cant pepper something with nonsense and lies, and then expect any of it to be taken seriously. I hope the skeptical review proves a little better.

I would challenge any body who claims to be an intellectully honest athiest to put together a list of real biblical problems, free from noise and out of context detritus.

I suspect the list would end up being very short. I would be happy to help cull items that can be answered from such list if anybody would like to take me up on my offer.

Jason

3DChizl

I'll Second Rimstalker on that.

Viti

svensky, you ask for lists, then refuse to read them. What is silly nonsense to you is not to others. I became an atheist after studying such articles and lists as have been recommended to you here. The difference, I think, is that I had already questioned the origins and veracity of the bible and you have not. Calling the authors of these articles morons and discounting everything in one sweep as "lies and nonsense" leads me to believe you are incapable of refuting the issues in a reasonable manner.

I personally think you are a moron for believing the bible is anything other than fiction...but apparently you can accept the obvious contradictions and inconsistancies. Good for you, but please don't waste our time by asking for information then dismising it without a glance.

Why don't you pick a few items from one of the lists and explain/refute it logically. You can't expect others to determine what you would consider worthy of your time.

You stated
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BTW i'm not going to waste time looking at the biblical errancy news letter, i've looked at it in the past, and again, you cant pepper something with nonsense and lies, and then expect any of it to be taken seriously. I hope the skeptical review proves a little better.
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I would say the same thing about the Bible. how can anyone take it seriously when it is "peppered with nonsense and lies"?

Grumpy

Say I assemble a list of, say, a dozen contradictions to undermine the credibility of the Bible. You're telling me that if, say, three of my examples are spurious, then they undermine the credibility of the rest of my list?

What about my other nine? How many contradictions can "pepper" the Bible before it loses credibility?

P.S. Great minds, LadyShea. Great minds....

[ October 28, 2001: Message edited by: Grumpy ]

ex-preacher

Au contrair, my friend. It was painfully obvious from your first post that you are a Christian and that you are not, in fact, interested in learning. Learning requires both a great deal of desire to learn and intense effort. You exhibit neither trait.

Give us an example of one type of "alleged contradiction" that you find valid or almost valid and we will give you a dozen more just like it. I won't hold my breath waiting for your reply.

Echo

svensky,

I think you are going about this the wrong way. Don't go looking for pre-fab lists of contradictions because you will inevitably find some that you and I would both agree are petty or perhaps not even contradictions at all. Then, by your own admission, you will just toss out the list and never bother addressing some of the meatier contradictions.

I would second an earlier suggestion to check out the Skeptical Review. But don't go looking for the editor, Farrell Till, to go writing out any lists for you. He addresses only a few contradictions or errors per issue, and he does so in detail.
I've seen him make hash browns of inerrantists, so I would recommend giving some back issues a serious read.

[ October 28, 2001: Message edited by: Echo ]

Muad'Dib

I am not an atheist (I'm agnostic, rather) and I don't find such lists to be especially helpful, but perhaps you'd be willing to answer individual questions about the text?

Just one to start with, not greatly relevant perhaps, but still interesting: to which three people did Peter deny Jesus?

svensky

A couple of quick points. I am looking at the skeptics review at the moment, and will contiue to do so as i find the time.

As to tossing out the whole list because it contains a few invalid things. I did say a majority of spurious things. The ones that casue me to doubt the authors honesty, and suggest they are either being intentionally deceptive or stupid is when they claim a section of psalms, that are POETRY and SONG and then infer the bible is making a claim about science from that, and claim that the claim is obviously false, at this point i am doubting the authors ability to compile what they claim they are compiling. They also tend to have lists of powers of 10 numerical errors and things like this. They are not difficult to explain, and to claim that we should throw the bible out, rather than say, ok this does look like a scribal error, well come on.

The skeptical review seems at least that the author has taken a couple of issues in depth. This is what i was after. I will post some more in depth questions when i've had a chance to review them.

Despite claim to the contray, i am interested in checking the veracity of the bible. I figure this may not be a bad place to start to get some information, but you can hardly expect me to see your point, when to be honest I have found the bible to be quite reliable in the past. So i figure i might as well investigae furthur.

I have found in the past, that most alleged contradictions or problems can easily be resolved by looking at context, or certianly a reasonable explanation can be found. I am willing to accept scribal error in many cases, we dont have the original manuscripts, only copies, and i do believe many of the results of textural criticism are valid.

At any rate, despite claims to the contray, i am interested in learning, i'm just unwilling to waste time wading through huge slabs of nonsense on the odd chance there is something of value in there.

I'm sorry if this makes me look like i wouldn't give good information a chance, i will and am interested in investigating it.

By way of making my point, the claim has been made, how can your trust the bible becasue it has so many problems etc, well this is my argument, how can i trust a list of error and contradictions when it has mistakes and very spurious and misleading statements.

I'm not sure what people hope to achive with long lists of problems simply becasue only very out there and wacky christians hold to an inerrant bible the same way the muslims do about the koran.

Jason

svensky

>Just one to start with, not greatly relevant perhaps, but still interesting: to which three people did Peter deny Jesus?

Christ said peter would deny him three times, not to three people. Peter denied christ 3 times to one person. Its in the text.

I assume you mean that this doesn't count ?

Any more questions ? This really is for me a more than adequate response. Please fill me in if you feel that it isn't.

Jason

svensky

Grumpy, if i felt three from twelve where spurious, or trivally answered, then no i dont think that would undermine your list, but then i would ask why you included them. But when the list if a lot longer than that, and when > 50% fall into this category, and these are ones i dont need to investigate, they can be answered from the top of my head, or the twist is easily resolved simply by reading acouple of verses each side, so out of context or obviously wrong, at this point i start to find the list as a whole list questionable.

Jason