My girlfriend, who is a sincere believer though in no way a fundamentalist, dismisses the twits who spout nonsense about "biblical inerrancy" this way. She figures that if they can't quote from the original Aramaic or Greek, then they need to shut up. If there was indeed any time when the scriptures could have come from gawd hisself, that would have been it. The rest are mere copies prone to human error and hearsay.

So, let me get this straight. To fully understand the bible, I have to learn Greek and Aramaic? Wouldn't God have made sure his words were translated correctly (esp since more people speak English than the other two nowadays?)

Spot the Catholic!

I'm an ex-Catholic too, but I thought if I called it the 6th Commandment I'd look even sicker to Protestants and ex-Protestants.

Here's my favorite part, right near the beginning:
In sum:
When it is convenient to us, the bible is flawed because it was written by humans. Otherwise, the bible is inerrant because it was inspired by god.

Muslims talk often about the many contradictions in the Bible.

Well, I for one feel snubbed. What are we--chopped liver?

I suspect the Muslim objections were fewer in number and possible easier to "explain" (i.e., harmonize or dismiss). Last I checked, there are gobs of easily-located atheist "Bible contradiction" lists that contain several hundred contradictions.

If Xns really wanted their pound of flesh, they'd take on the objectors who were raised "in the faith" and know the Bible firsthand.

Sez me.

diana

Many people I know have claimed this as well, but my question is: WHICH original text? It's unlikely that any extant manuscripts are perfectly accurate copies of the orginals, and even if they were, we wouldn't know which ones they are.

This is probably more of a problem with the OT than NT; IIRC, we're missing quite a bit of the original Aramaic of Daniel, and a chapter or two from either 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel, even with the help of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Edited to add: Most of the OT is written in Hebrew, not Aramaic, so apparently that's another to add to the List of Languages to Learn Before You Can Talk About the Bible.

[This message has been edited by Muad'dib (edited July 01, 2001).]

It's clear now why the various numeralogical interpretations of holy writings exist. Mathematics is one way you would expect a superior intelligence to communicate with all humanity, regardless of language. However, most numeralogical schemes for "decoding" the Bible usually reveal nothing more than the "intelligence" of the decoders.

One thing I would appreciate from apologists, such as the compiler of the list in the OP, is a full Bible translation. Call it the "What God Meant To Say" version, and be done with it.

What I think is more perplexing was that the romans did not even use the 7-day week that was mentioned in the bible at this time. The Julian calendar was in use during this period, not the Gregorian calendar. Explain to me how during this day and age we can use our own convenient calendar and say Jesus died on Friday and ascended on Easter Sunday? 7-day weeks were considered bad luck. Most bartering society's weeks depended on the trade that was going on at any given location; some were 4 - 5 day weeks and others were even 10-day weeks

[This message has been edited by choo (edited July 02, 2001).]

ROTFLMAO! Damn, so funny, yet so rational!
Good one!