Amaleq13

Not if they want to claim that the Bible is the inerrant product of an omniscient and omnipotent deity.

You quoted Holding/Turkel:
Why should this be "hardly possible" for an omniscient and omnipotent deity?

Amaleq13

Indeed. Why would an omniscient deity choose a flawed "pen" to write an inerrant text? Why not produce it directly as some claim was done with the Ten Commandments?

GakuseiDon

I would say that it would come down to how closely you'd expect God would want to control us, i.e. free-will vs God's Plan.

As I said before, this is a theological argument that is irrelevent to the issue at hand.

Personally, I object to inerrancy on theological grounds (as well as the fact that I think that the Bible has errors, of course!)

Ebonmuse

Look at them if you want, but if you believe that Jesus intended to give advice applicable to all people throughout history, then do not make the mistake of assuming that he was always bound by them. Holding does, apparently, although this leads him to some very inconsistent positions; for example, I'll bet he's against slavery, though Jesus never once condemned the practice, and the most likely explanation for that is that slavery was not considered an evil in Jesus' time and so he did not consider it to be wrong either. Like most Christians, he derives his notions of right and wrong primarily from his own conscience and the ethical advances society has made since the Bible was written, not from the Bible itself.

I'm afraid you're the one who's constructing a straw man here. I never said inerrantists believe that everything in the Bible was supposed to be applicable to all people everywhere. But my above point remains.

GakuseiDon

I think Holding covers that, in his "railings on the roofs" example I reproduced above.

Heh? If inerrantists don't believe that everything in the Bible was applicable to all people everywhere, then what of your point that inerrantists are "trying to have their cake and eat it too"? Obviously, they don't necessarily have to maintain both propositions simultaneously. I'm afraid I'm not sure what your point is. Why do you say that inerrantists have to maintain both propositions simultaneously, if inerrantists believe that not everything in the Bible is supposed to be applicable to all people everywhere?

spin

You haven't read your Heisenberg, GakuseiDon. It's better not to open the box.


spin

Sensei Meela

Wouldn't that be Shroedinger, spin?
[With the box reference; I'm sure you meant Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, with the cake simultaneously 'eaten and had']

Ted Hoffman

Your friend needs psychiatric help. Find out what his thoughts are concerning why only he is capable of seeing what he sees and not the rest of us?

Perhaps he thinks he is .. um.. gifted? Or.. um.. special?

Bingo!

Ebonmuse

I really don't see how that's in any way comparable. Times have changed; people no longer hang out on their friends' roofs (college students possibly excepted). But people still get married. The social conditions that made the former rule relevant no longer exist, but the conditions that make the latter one relevant certainly still do.

As I have said, to apply Holding's standard would apparently make Jesus incapable of giving any moral advice that conflicted with the moral norms of first-century Judaea. (Or at the very least, if there was a way he could have issued a universal ban on divorce and remarriage that would have been understood as such by later Christians, no one's explained to me what it is.) Yet modern-day apologists like Holding ignore their own qualification when they conclude that Jesus was actually against things like slavery, or flogging as a punishment for criminals, or the inequality of women, or treating all illness as caused by demon possession, although at the time those things were all standard practice and morally acceptable. That is what I mean by those commentators trying to have their cake and eat it too. If you claim that Jesus' teachings have to be interpreted in light of the beliefs of his time, then employ all the beliefs of his time.

Ebonmuse

I should also add that this debate hasn't even mentioned a third contradictory verse, 1 Corinthians 7:13-15, where Paul adds one rather important qualification - divorce is also okay if an unbelieving partner wants one - that isn't mentioned in any of the gospels.