llamaluvr

BSM:

You are absolutely correct that hermeneutics are crucial. However, despite me not mentioning it, I find nowhere where I have thrown that notion to the wind. In fact, I'm really puzzled as to why you brought it up, to be honest.

After quoting Hirsch here
you mention that it is a matter of probability here
I can't find a single utterance mentioning probability. He mentions different possibilities for interpretation, but that's about it. If he is implying probability, he is certainly not considering factors outside of the text at this point. Nor, if by "assign[ing] a truth-value" you mean proving something to be logically sound, can I find any mention of that in the text you selected.

What I do see is him talking about finding the "single truth-intention" of verses, phrases, etc. and the author's "intended meaning". This is what exegesis is for. It's not for finding out if something is absolutely true. You can't deductively prove that some fella named Jesus got nailed to a tree 2000 years ago. But you can show whether or not something is logically consistent. You have to do that based on rules of interpretation, because only when you set those can you start checking passages with each other. Then, when you've looked at your hypothetical or actual truth table and found a reasonable possibility, you can set those forth as a possible intended meaning.

Probability really only comes in when you have multiple interpretations that preserve logical consistency. You can *say* that one interpretation is more probable than the other, but you can never really say how much. HOWEVER, the reason I've avoided this part is because this is not even remotely related to what I've been talking about. Proving logical consistency is unrelated to multiple possible meanings and their supposed probabilities because, once you find one possible meaning, you've already proven consistency on a set of statements.

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I need to take a quick foray into elementary logic, because I hope it will help clear some things up.

I've used the term "logically valid" casually before, but I think I'll stop, because it really means something a bit different. You could technically test for logical validity to prove contradictions, but you'd have to take the verses in question as premises and form your own conclusion. Doing so wouldn't necessarily be ambiguous, but it would be a pain in the butt.

Therefore, the correct term is logical consistency. A set of sentences are logically consistent if and only if they could all possibly be logically true. In other words, there is no mutual exclusion (in regards to truthfulness) among any of them. This is what you test for when you're testing for contradictions.

You only consider the source in doing this, because the set of sentences are only from the source. If any sentences are not from the source, you're no longer considering the logical consistency of just the source, and you're no longer considering whether or not the source contradicts himself.

If you want to find out if it is *actually* true, then you're vying for logical soundness. This is not related to consistency, or non-contradiction. Something can be consistent and still not be sound. You can consider anything when it comes to proving soundness.

The problem I had with Don's position is that he was basically saying that it was okay to use evidence that can only be considered in a soundness test in a consistency test. Every logic textbook and introductory logic student (who recieved a passing grade ;-) ) disagrees with this. I guess if a writer wants to consider the consistency of the Bible + natural history + Pat Robertson + every fundie ever + some other guy's opinion + whatever else, I guess he can, but then he shouldn't be saying that any contradictions he finds are "the Bible contradicting itself'". He's testing soundness, anyway.

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It's a message board, dude. I caught ya the first time ;-).

I wouldn't have loaded the question quite as much as you have, but, heck yeah, it does. Doesn't your belief otherwise motivate you? Why is it worse for me?

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By perfect, I meant what Don was talking about. He claimed that the Bible should be a lot better if it is really the work of a perfect God. If we're going to be able to say ANYTHING either way about this, we better have some sort of rubric. Does anybody have a perfect-o-meter we can borrow?


You've stated the positions of the folks who wrote the Ecumenical Translation of the Bible without really any evidence as to why they hold them. I disagree with them. Seeing as you did not go any deeper than that, and because it is off-topic, I'll leave it at that. All I'll I say about their opinions is "yay for free speech".

You go to church, participate in church school, attend Bible study, etc. to learn the beliefs of the church and what the Bible says. The role of teaching in the church is not to provide a point-counterpoint in regards to the logical soundness of Christianity. People are taught in the church with the assumption of them being Christian. I don't think it's a perfect system, as it can often come off as not being seeker-friendly, but you have to some component which simply teaches the foundations of the faith. There's just too much information for us not to do that. Church's primary purpose (in terms of church body gatherings) is to mobilize and equip believers. A great many of us do comparative studies, obtain information about other angles, and test our believes against other viewpoints (why do think some of us come here?), but if we made that THE prime component of all of our services and studies, we'd be missing a whole lot.

I think it would be far more misleading for a church which did not state its own beliefs, which is what you seem to be suggesting we do.

II is a very different animal. It is not an athiest church. It has components which are more intended for internal athiest matters, and those appear to be well-protected. But most of it is intended to relay information about the philosophical questions of religion/non-religion.

I'm not saying it is doing a bad job of this, nor am I saying it is full of dirty liars who promote not researching and just being a sheep. In fact, I think it is better than 99% of the places to look up information on the subject. All I'm saying is that there are a ton of people who take this info as truth, so we should at least make sure it is logically kosher, regardless of whether or not anybody or everybody or somebody believes it. At least with the logic we can speak on being sound, folks are free to accurately debate the points which are still up in the air. It creates a level playing field. As a member of a church, I can assure you that my pastor would greatly appreciate knowing if we weren't following the rules of logic in our teachings.

-DM-

[Inasmuch as the recent participants in this thread are registered users, I am moving this from Feedback to Biblical Criticism & History in order to facilitate open discussion. -DM-]

BSM

Keith,

First, I am not a professional philosopher, theologian, or biblical scholar. Therefore, if you are you may have me at a disadvantage. I am well-read in some of these areas; in addition my commentary is based on 20 years of being a Christian. So caveat emptor! I am fallible.

Second, I apologize for not being clear. I was pressed for time then and I still am now, so this will most likely be my last comment, regardless of what blunders I may make or what additional comments you might have. Finally, before I go further let me give you my operational definitions:

“Exegesis is fundamentally a critical examination of text, whereby the researcher, using a variety of tools or critical disciplines, seeks to penetrate behind a text to the original meaning of the original author as he addressed his original constituency.� (Biblical Interpretation: Principles and Practices, p. 35)

Exegesis seeks to know the original message intended by the author. The original meaning is very important because that is the true and only meaning of the verse. This is what I meant by truth-value. However, after reading your comments I agree that I used a poor choice of words.

Hermeneutics is the process of interpreting the Bible (and there are many ways to go about this which I will touch on later). I mentioned hermeneutics because it has relevance when looking at contradictions. In effect, it includes all the rules, principles, theory, and methods of interpreting the Bible. It covers the process from trying to understand the original meaning of the verses to what it means to Christians today.

Contradictions: Two propositions are said to be contradictory if they can neither both be true together nor both false together; one of them must be true and the other must be false.

Part of the problem in this dialogue seems to stem from three presuppositions that I suspect you have. In fact, I’ve seen these stated in almost every book on Biblical interpretation that I’ve read:
1. The Bible is the inspired, authoritative, infallible and inerrant Word of God.
2. The Bible is its own best interpreter, providing a unifying theological context for understanding any particular chapter and verse.
3. The Bible does not contradict itself.

So, if you believe any or all of the previous then you already have the potential to be biased. To be fair, however, many authors (including me) who assemble laundry lists of contradictions can potentially bring their own biases to the table (and I’m not suggesting that Morgan or Merritt did). In fact, you have already alluded to this point so I’m not going to take it any further.

OK, your definition seems to jive with my definition of a contradiction. No problem here.

By “source� do you mean a particular book of the Bible (i.e., one verse from John compared to another verse from John)? If so I disagree.

OK, then you ARE saying that when dealing with contradictions we must deal with the whole work. Good, we agree.

Granted, laundry lists of contradictions do have their weaknesses. But, at the most simplistic level they do compare different verses in the whole work. Moreover, I’m confused at your references to “only considering the text.� Where has Morgan or Merritt not considered “the text�?

You then present this analogy:

Your analogy suggests that Merritt use extra-biblical evidence to support his contradictions. Perhaps we are not reading the same article but I just don’t see where he does this. Granted, he does not take biblical interpretation/criticism to a scholarly level. However, it’s my personal opinion that most of these “lists� are not intended to be scholarly expositions (though some can be and are). In fact, what II does is no different than what similar Christian websites have done. Take CARM for example.

Follow the link and you will see a a basic list of verses that support their view of Christian doctrine. However, other flavors of Christianity can, and do, disagree with some of the points on their list. In particular, I know several denominations that would disagree with their notions of God, the Trinity, and the nature of Hell—at least as represented by the CARM list. In fact, much like II, CARM offers articles/essays that could be considered scholarly, popular, or practical/opinion-based (caveat: my opinion is based on a quick scan of CARM’s material, however I am not familiar with their selection and editorial process).

In any event, your analogy suggests that Merritt looks beyond the Bible to other textual sources and he does not. In addition, in your example we would need to do more than just consider the text of what Kerry said or did in order to see if he contradicted himself. In other words, much like biblical interpretation, we’d have to apply some sort of method or process before claiming something a contradiction. Naturally, this method would have to account for many factors including context (e.g., there may be a good reason why Kerry voted for the war and then voted against it and just looking at the text will not capture this).

In fact, you yourself seem to do more than just look at the text when you wrote this:

In other words, you seem to be putting meaning into the verses (i.e., eisegesis) rather than just letting the text speak as text.

Also, Biblical exegesis is more than just considering logical validity and contradictions and there are several ways to go about doing it. For example, Elements of Biblical Exegesis lists three approaches, “The synchronic approach, the diachronic approach, and the existential approach.� To muddy the waters even more, the last approach can be subdivided further into “trust/consent or suspicion.� The bottom line here is that the process can be quite complicated and there appears to be no one right way to do it.

This would be a matter of opinion, especially if you go at interpretation from a plenary proof-text method or literal approach. Quoting Efird in How to Interpret the Bible, “The danger of this type of understanding is that it places too much importance on all components of the biblical materials, disallowing any real development in the religious understandings and teachings contained in the biblical material. Too much is made of small portions of text ripped apart from their larger contexts� (p. 4).

Efird goes on to list other approaches as well. These include an existentialist approach, a literary approach, a psychological/sociological approach, a historical/critical approach, and even his own method: an eclectic approach which is alleged to utilize the strengths from all the previous approaches.

The bottom line is that there are folks who do interpret the Bible literally. Moreover, there are Christians (Efird for example) who believe that their method is superior to that of the literalist. In effect, all camps seem to have a method for getting at the "true" meaning.

Irregardless, it is my opinion that these laundry lists of contradictions are useful in getting a literalist to think about other ways to look at the Bible. Whether this is Morgan’s or Merritt’s intent I cannot say. However, I believe that at least one of those authors was a literalist when he was Christian, so this is one plausible explanation.

Some comments on your attempt to rescue John 10:30:

John 10:30: “I and my father are one.�
John 14:9: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.�

Versus

John 14:28: “If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.�


If I and the Father are one means nothing more than unity or united as you have suggested, then why would the Jews wish to stone Jesus for being one with God.

Didn't the Jews have unity with the Father too? Why would the Jews, who had unity with the Father, try to kill Jesus for affirming the same thing? If Jesus was just affirming unity with the Father by saying I and the father are one, then why did the Jews misunderstand His words to mean that He was God?

John 10:31-33: “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?� The Jews reply: “We are not stoning you for any of these but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.�

Finally, if the Jews were mistaken ithen why did Jesus not correct them Seems to me that I and my Father are one or Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father versus the Father is greater than I is a contradiction. Bottom line: something cannot be the same as something and also greater than it. If that isn’t a contradiction then I don’t know what is.

Finally, you write:

No perfect-o-meter here at II, in my office, or in Christianity: “In fact, probably no ironclad method exists which can protect persons from misinterpretations of the Scriptures no matter how hard one might try to find such an approach� (How to Interpret the Bible, p. 13). Related to this point, I find it somewhat amusing that there are “preferred� Bibles for exegesis:

Preferred: RSV, NAB, NRSV.
Acceptable with caution: NAS95, REB, NIV.
Unacceptable for exegesis, but otherwise helpful: The Message, GNB, CEB, NLT, NJB.
Unacceptable: LB, KJV (AV), NKJV.

In particular, “The KJV was produced in 1611 by a team of translators…Since 1611, many older and better manuscripts of the Bible have been discovered…this means that an exegesis using the KJV may sometimes be analyzing one or more words, phrases, or verses that did not actually appear in the original� (Elements of Biblical Exegesis, pp. 51-52).

This only begs the question: how many denominations are getting it wrong due to their strict belief in the KJV. In fact, it’s quite common in the Midwest and the South for certain denominations to claim that the KJV is THEE Bible.

I can’t offer you a perfect-o-meter but I can offer you better scenario than your omnipotent, omniscient, and "perfect" God has given us: Original manuscripts of Jesus’ writings in his own language (these would include his rules for salvation along with statements claiming that he is God), copies of these manuscripts with little or no variation between them, secondary sources authored by the Apostles which expand upon and support what Jesus wrote down, being able to authenticate that the Apostles did indeed write their own accounts; and, a few extrabiblical accounts that are not suspected forgeries which, at the very least, would prove that a man named Jesus did exist, got into trouble with the authorities, was executed, and a cult later formed in his honor (we’ll leave His divinity to the theologians and the philosophers).

Regards and happy holidays,

~BSM

llamaluvr

BSM:

Thanks for your response. It was quite thorough, and it cleared a lot up about your position to me.

Yes and Yes. I think we need to consider those who believe the above no less credible than those who believe
1. The Bible is not the inspired, authoritative, infallible and inerrant Word of God.
2. The Bible is not its own best interpreter, providing a unifying theological context for understanding any particular chapter and verse.
3. The Bible does not not contradict itself.
in this matter.

I'd disagree with that, too. :-)
Definitely.
We actually technically diverted from Meritt's text pretty early on. The conversation was framed by it, but I was actually talking about Morgan's opinion of what would constitute a refutation of a contradiction. I have no idea what Meritt thinks about this.

In effect, we're not really talking about Meritt's list anymore, but the philosophy and logic behind contradictions lists.

Oh, believe me, I'm fully aware of this! :-/ I can't seem to chalk it up to the Bible sucking, though- it's far more due to people sucking. Heck, plenty of the NT is about false teachers, so we should expect this.

There are some things that are minor and understandable differences. The predestination vs. free will debate is a great example of this. The Bible supports facets of both. Does this mean the Bible contradicts itself on this issue? No- no position it takes on one is mutually exclusive of any other. Does it mean the Bible is vauge on this issue? Yeah- but probably for a good reason. It's not a critical issue, and, if no verse on this topic is mutually exclusive of any other, then it must be some spectacularly innovative combination of both positions. Would we even understand something like that? Because we don't know everything about this issue, church's can feel free to take one position, or another position, or no position on it without risking their integrity. The difference of opinion isn't evidence of any contradictions. The only thing that makes it seem so is the extent to which some churches freak out about such issues. These issues aren't make-or-break-salavation issues- they're just the spice in the lives of Biblical scholars.

Now, issues where a church is in error are generally quite obvious by their arguments. For instance, churches that contend that the Bible makes no claim of homosexuality being a sinful behavior are often *very* selective in their verse selection. They generally ignore Leviticus and Paul's sermons, and pick out all the verses where Jesus talks about loving your neighbor and such. The result is a total non sequitur. Couldn't I apply the same "argument" to nullify *all* sins?

I don't think so. Far many more have stated that viewpoint before me. In fact, I ripped it off from somewhere ;-).

When you exegite(???), you have to pick some likely meaning for the words involved, or else you can't derive any meaning from it. We already have an array of accepted meanings for words at our disposal (a dictionary), so we have to look at the text some to get more specific. In the absense of any supporting text, I would have to say that any valid definition, within reason, would be fair game.

I think the key word in the aforementioned set of verses from John is "one". We can make a reasonable determination of the definition of this word in this context from the text. First of all, it is painfully obvious from the text that Jesus and the Father aren't to be considered to be the *exact* same thing. One is walking the earth and the other isn't! Anything beyond that evidence is just gravy.

So, "one" does not mean they are identical. While we're deducing this, we can quietly grunt and nod at the fact that we've seen this notion outside the Bible. The Three Musketeers, for example, are "all for one, and one for all".

So, this process is much more drawn out then I care to go through here, but, at some point, one's conclusion on this matter is that, at the very least, while they aren't identical, what Jesus and the Father do have in common is that they are God. John 1 makes that assertion explicitly, so there's no dodging it.

Jews did not have unity with the Father in the same sense Jesus did, because the Jews were not also God. If anything, the OT especially often talks of how the Jews are estranged from God. Finally, the relationship between the Jews and God in the OT is often compared to marriage, as often is the relationship between the church and Jesus. We find no such comparison between Jesus and God.

Read closely the surrounding verses about Jesus being "lesser". He is talking about his earthly state. Also, he is communicating this message to his disciples, not the people who stoned him.

The Jews understood his words perfectly. This is the synopsys of what Jesus claims regarding his deity:

the Father is God.
Jesus is God.
Jesus is not the Father.

The each member of the godhead is like a different face of a cube. Each face is unique, but they all make up the same cube.

The thing the Jews didn't understand were his deeds. They heard what he said. They saw what he did. He backed up his claims with real power. Those Jews, however, didn't put two and two together.

A extend a big, hearty "LOL" to the "THEE Bible" comment. I was once listening to radio broadcast, and this guy who called in said, "Yeah, I guess those folks who use other Bibles can learn *a little bit* about God from them." Yeah, because none of the other ones contain ANY similar subject matter ;-).

Anyway, if there are "rules" about which ones to use, I think 99+% of the time, they don't matter. While it is a fact of life that some translations are simply going to be more authentic than others (the language differences from ancient hebrew/ greek/ aramaic to English are huge!), virtually all were painstakingly crafted with much attention to minutae. The only ones you shouldn't use are the ones you mentioned that are unsuitable for exegesis, as they are for obvious reasons. The Message is much more a conceptual retelling of the Bible than an actual reflection of the text.

Personally, the one I use is the NIV, because that's what is sitting on my desk in paper form at the moment. However, if I'm presented with a set of supposed contradictions with quotations form the KJV, I'll debunk the KJV version (most contradictions list employ the KJV, so this is frequent). The only ones I won't touch are the "special interest" Bibles (never actually had somebody present me with quotes from one), and I'll tell people why we can't consider them accurate.

I think it's great to check at least two versions if you have the time. English and the original languages do not have a one-to-one correspondance with each other, so sometimes different translations highlight different qualities of a particular verse.

Have a great holiday!!

BSM

Keith,

Since I made headway on my holiday shopping I’m going to be a hypocrite and go back on my word by commenting further.

This assumes that Jesus thought he was God; it also assumes that he was God. Also, from what I recall of Judaism, it is built around a relationship with God. Even the Biblical Jews claimed to be the “chosen people� so it seems to me that they thought that they were unified with God. In fact, some Jews were very nationalistic and thought of themselves as God’s ONLY people (to the point of being prejudiced), while others believe that after the Messiah comes we will all worship God in unity.

Also, the Jews that Jesus was talking to were Pharisees. According to Britanica the Pharisees first appeared in the second century B.C. They originated from a group called the Hasidim (God's loyal ones). By about 135 B.C. they were known as Pharisees (the separated ones). The Pharisees were the keepers of the Mosaic law (The Torah). They believed that having role of keeper’s of this law was proof that they were God's chosen people, to whom the Messiah would eventually come. They also believed that it was essential to obey the Torah in order to remain God’s chosen people. So, it seems to me that you can’t get much more “one� with God—at least from the perspective of Pharisee in Jesus’ time.

Ah, that pesky Trinity! In relation to the aforenoted contradiction in John and your response, there are a few possibilities here that may be argued. Five that I can think of are:

1) Jesus was claiming to be the Trinitarian Christian God (your argument). In my opinion, there is nothing about trinity (three persons in one being or three persons in one God) in John. One has to read such philosophy into the text. The Hebrew writers of the Old Testament (before the Greek influence) would not have seen anything in this chapter that would lead them to believe that John was saying anything about a triune God. In fact, Jews today do not accept any of the New Testament, nor do they accept the trinity dogma and they believe that the Old Testament (and the God described therein) is harmonious without all the Christian additions. In fact, if you follow the history of Christianity, the church did not start to “officially� try to define the trinity until 325 CE at Nicea. Moreover, prior to 325 there were many sects of Christianity that disagreed on what Jesus was (the Arians for example). Finally, the church does not officially resolve the issue until 1274 CE at Lyons. However, even today, various sects and denominations still disagree over the notion of the Trinity so I’m not sure if it is resolved.

2) Jesus was claiming to be Yahweh (the Jewish God): One could argue that he claimed not only to be a God, but Yahweh Himself (Deuteronomy 6:4; John 10:30-33). One could also argue that the Jews understood Him to be claiming that he and Yahweh were one and the same. To the Jews this was blasphemy. Blasphemy received the death penalty by stoning according to the Law of Moses, which is likely why they took up stones to stone Him.

3) Jesus was just a delusional man who thought that he was the Messiah and at that point in the narrative he was using Jewish scripture to get himself out of a stoning. For example, he quotes Psalm 82:6 stating, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?".

Jesus may have been saying that since the Pharisees believe that it is correct to apply the word “God� to those in authority (i.e. the Jewish authorities), then it may be OK for others in similar offices to do the same. In effect, if he held the office of the Jewish Messiah, it was OK for Jesus to call himself God (whether he actually was God or the Messiah is another question).

4) Jesus was just claiming unity with God (see above comments). However, I do not think this one is plausible given the fact that they wanted to stone him—wanted him dead . He must have done something to make them mad enough to kill him and I doubt claiming unity would have done that.

5) Jesus was pointing out that the Pharisees were corrupt; in effect, he was a human reformer who was confronting them (his divinity is another matter). They in turn were trying to kill him for challenging their authority and exposing them. For example, according to Scripture the Jewish leaders had been seeking a reason to kill him for a long time. (Matthew 12:14; Mark 3:6; 11:18; Luke 4:28,29; 6:11; 19:47; John 5:18; 7:19,20; 8:37) In John 7:1 we read of one instance where it is stated that the Jewish leaders were planning to kill him. When Jesus confronted them with this, they denied it. This, of course has the Jews breaking the Law because they are lying (John 7:19,20).

Choices two, three, or five seem more likely to me assuming that a man named Jesus even existed. Insomuch as we have no original texts, nor do we know who really authored any of the aforenoted books, it all boils down to speculation, opinion, or educated arguments (some of which may be biased).

On contradictions it almost seems to me that you (and other Christians) will accept the philosophical definition of a contradiction except when it applies to God or the Bible.

Contradiction: Two propositions are said to be contradictory if they can neither both be true together nor both false together; one of them must be true and the other must be false.

In effect, this is what Don is getting at when he often mentions ad hoc explanations that Christian use to shore up their arguments. So, when, according to a Christian, is a contradiction a contradiction? It is quite apparent that there are many contradictions in the Bible—especially if you are not a biblical scholar who is versed in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. In other words, if you simply read the plain old English translations “as is�, without being aware of (or able to) read/comprehend the Greek or Hebrew translations, the Bible contradicts itself (and this gets better or worse dependent on which version/translation you read). At this point Christians will cart out all the tools that go with Biblical interpretation (i.e., those things we’ve already discussed), which is all good and fine. However, what I am getting at is that in my opinion, this is not the most effective way to get as many people as possible to correctly “understand� the Bible—especially if the author is omnipotent and omniscient. In fact, I already offered a much more effective scenario that would at least make a better argument for the historical credibility of scripture and I am not God.

Finally, even if we can read Hebrew, Latin, or Greek there are still problems with various translations. Since it’s Christmas lets take the notion of Mary and the virgin birth:

So, even if we can read and speak Greek, Hebrew, or Latin (and I cannot), there are still problems (and possibly contradictions dependent on which educated opinion/translation you side with). (Incidentally, Newsweek ran an interesting article that is related to this topic: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653824/site/newsweek/)

Speaking of contradictions, if Jesus did “die� as reported by the Bible, then how can he be eternal? Eternal means never being able to die period (1 Timothy 6:16; Deuteronomy 32:39-40). For that matter, if there is an afterlife and it is Heaven or Hell, then we never truly die either so I guess we are eternal even though we can’t be because, according to the Bible, only God is (unless you believe that Hell is a cessation in our existence).

Whatever the case, it seems to me the issue is a moot point if Jesus is also God; further, your Rubic’s Cube theory of the Trinity doesn’t get you out of this conundrum. God cannot die; only a human can. Both cannot be true according to the philosophical definition of a contradiction. Unless, that is, God is not bound by logic, at which point God becomes such a muddle that he is reduced to an absurdity (especially since we are bound by logic to understand things).

Finally, on the KJV. I agree that it can be funny when two quasi-eggheads are debating the topic. However, when denominations use their absolute belief in the KJV to justify the denial of medical treatment to their children it loses its humor pretty quick. In fact, this happened twice locally. In both instances, the children died.

~BSM

llamaluvr

Definitely a forgivable flip-flop :-).

Correct. That's what we have to do when we check for contradictions. We take the "truth statements" as if they're true.

I'm speaking of two different types of unity. You can have a relatioship with a member of the godhead and not be God. Jesus's unity was that he and the Father were both God- they were distinct faces of the godhead, but they were both God. The unity between God and Jews or Christians can best be described as a "relationship" and/or "covenant". They're not God or part of God but they're in some way aligned with him.

The United States and the United Kingdom are in a "convenant" of sorts- an alliance. This does not mean they are the same nation. They do act as one entity for some purposes (the "coalition forces"). But they act as totally separate entities for many others.

The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit go beyond this. They don't really need a covenant. They are eact part of one God who must act with one purpose. But they do act in different ways towards that same end. The Father is like the department of Justice, the Son acts as sort of a lawyer, and the Holy Spirit works towards the empowerment of earth-dwelling believers. They all represent God's interests, but they do so in different ways.

And this is where I think Jesus would be quick to point out how wrong they were. You can know laws and obey them perfectly and still not be at all aligned with God. It's about motivations. Jesus was constantly in the business of pointing out how they were doing it all for number one, and not for the big guy upstairs.

From the gospels alone we can acertain two-thirds of the godhead. We have Jesus claiming to be God and, at the same time, claiming that he is a different entity than the Father. So, at that point, we have two parts of one God. John 1 further clarifies the point.

In the NT, we have the "Holy Spirit", and in the OT we have frequent mentions of God's spirit, or something along those lines. Additionally, the NT frequently paints the three godheads in a similar hole- see Matt 28:19, 2 Cor 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2, Jude 1:20-21, 1 John 5:7. In combination (read them all!), they hint fairly damningly that the Holy Spirit is part and parcel with God.

The concept of the Trinity isn't an explicit detail of the Bible; rather it is simply the putting of one and one and one together to make something palpable and easy to remember. And this clarification has been going on since at least the 2nd century. 325 is when a lot of stuff was "officially" codified, since it was shortly after when Christianity first became legal in the Roman Empire.

I read a commentary on this just now, and I wasn't that satisfied. Therefore, I'm thinking that this line is more or less a play on words by Jesus. The word "gods" in Psalm 82:6 cannot be considered anything more than something signifigantly less than actually being a deity. It is more of a jab at the subjects' stature and power than anything.

Therefore, when Jesus is comparing the word in Psalm and his use of the word in describing himself, he is comparing little more than the word itself, because the similarities end there. This shouldn't be treated as more than a sharp-witted segue to his main point, expressed directly afterwards in John 10.

The Bible's position is that they more or less wanted to kill him because he was a threat to them. The Pharisees, however, needed some trumped up charges to do it, because they were not actually in authority to kill anybody. Despite his gaffe in the NT, Pilate was not much of a patsy at all, and I sure wouldn't want to tick him off if I was a local official. Generating charges of blasphemy (a reasonable thing to do, given that he actually claimed to be God) created a ruckus and essentially turned the whole ordeal into mob rule, and made it easier for Pilate to not want to bother with it further and just allow the Jews to do whatever they wanted.

The Bible sports one of the more popular advertising points of board games and other things- easy to get started, almost impossible to master. The message is clear enough that the least educated person can get it, and difficult enough that we can spend time going back and forth with 3000 word posts on a specific subset of it. The fact that there exist difficulties does not implicate that there are contradictions, nor does it say that it could have been done done better.

As a matter of fact, researching difficult verses has only stengthened my faith. You or Don's definition of "better" would likely not have been suitible for my spiritual growth. Likewise, would a Bible full of mind-numbingly clear statements, where everything was explicitly laid out, have caused either of you to believe? I don't know, but I doubt it. In either "version" of the Bible, the same truth-statements are there; they're just laid out differently.

Um, not to sound condescending, but, where? I didn't catch that, so, that's a serious question. What makes a "more effective scenario", anyway? Logical consistency is a rather cut-and-dry matter. Degrees of plausability don't really factor in much. I guess I won't comment much more since I don't really know what you're talking about specifically, and I haven't the foggiest where to start looking, and I need a break from the computer soon :-).

There's real words for this, but I can't think of them right now. Anyway, sometimes it is not satisfactory to just look at how the parts of a word come together to form a definition, but at how the word is used. The place I first read about this quoted someone saying "you wouldn't drink tea from a teaspoon, would you?". Anyway, throughout the Bible, "almah" is used to refer to a young woman who is either definitely a virgin, or almost certainly a virgin.

Furthermore, in that culture, a young woman is virtually assumed as being a virgin. Finally, casual study of Jewish words reveals that it is extremely rare that anything *just* means something as simple as "young woman" ;-).

Most importantly, however, is that the prophecy is not just Isaiah 7:14. The virgin birth part is practically a sidenote. The prophecy extends into chapter 8 and 9, and is about two boys, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz and Jesus, much more than it is about their mothers.

The Bible speaks of two different types of deaths, and at times explicitly differentiates between the two (Luke 12 as an example). In the OT, the context generally allows us to safely assume a physical death, while the NT splits it about half and half. But still, you can differentiate- for instance, when Jesus is comparing death with inheiriting the Kingdom of Heaven, of course he is talking about spritiual death, because you have to experience physical death to get the to the point where either of those is a possibility.

I agree that the latter isn't funny. I wouldn't blame it on the KJV, though. There are sects that do that that don't adhere strictly to the KJV, and there are sects that don't do that that adhere strictly to the KJV. I think there are other issues at work.

-Keith

BSM

You write:
Keith, that's the problem in this dialogue. You appear to be comfortable making at least one exception when it comes to the (t)ruth or (T)ruth of Christianity, I do not. In fact, to borrow a line from Mcdowel, "evidence demands a verdict." The problem here is that you, McDowell, and many other Christians make the evidence fit presupposed conclusions; whereas I try to let it speak for itself. However, as I noted earlier, I am fallible and potentially biased. That being said, I did search for years, clinging to the hope that I would somehow find evidence that would satisfactorily eliminate the doubt I had concerning scripture and the revealed truth of Christianity.

You also write:
Actually, Christianity sports one of the most effective forms of self-replication ever conceived. Psychology has shown that beliefs that are learned at an early age (positive or otherwise) are very hard to un-learn. So, Christian parents--for the most part--plant the Christian meme as soon as their children can speak. If they are really serious they'll make the child go to Sunday school or, in some cases, enroll the child in a private religious school. By the time the child reaches adulthood it becomes very hard to un-learn the belief, or to even objectively consider alternate views. Of course, the same could be said of other religions. In fact, Russell had it right when he said: "Sin is geographical."

If we are talking about reliable texts and NOT the existence of God, then here is my scenario (again): I don't presume to speak for Don. However, in my case, such a scenario would have made it much harder for me not to believe. In fact, the main reason I started to doubt Christianity was after learning how the Bible was assembled. Would it have been enough for me not to believe? Hard telling--I'm not omniscient. At the very least, such a scenario would likely take the wind out of many freethinkers' arguments that relate to the Bible.

Whatever the case, after examining the evidence from a comparative religion standpoint, there are some generalizations that are safe to make:

1) Most religions believe that they are the one true religion with the one true God or Gods.
2) Most have a text that is alleged to be divinely inspired.
3) Most have sects/denominations that disagree over the message of said text (e.g., Islam, Judaism, Christianity).
4) Most operate on the promise of an afterlife, the fear of hell, or both.

Personal opinion here, but aside from their historical and educational value, I think it's absurd to think that the writings of 2,000 year-old nomadic people have much application in the year 2004.

Also, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I believe that depending on the believer's level of education, it comes down to one of two things: 1) Confirmation Bias or 2) Selective Interpretation

In fact, your "least educated person" often suffers from selective thinking (hence the Biblical literalist and uneducated "fundy" stereotype); whereas an educated Christian like yourself often suffers from confirmation bias--at least in my humble opinion.


Spiritual death defined: "Spiritual death is the condition of one who is spiritually cut off, temporarily or permanently, from the presence of God."

Sorry Keith but this is still a contradiction. How can God be temporarily cut off from himself? He's either God or his isn't (unless the rules of logic do not apply to God in which case God can do anything that is logically impossible: squared circles, etc., at which point God becomes a muddle). Interestingly, this topic is an essay that I am ever so slowly trying to assemble and write. In effect, Christianity has three main views of Hell based on the "correct" interpretation of scripture: 1) Eternal torture, 2) Spiritual separation, 3) Cessation of existence. All three are loaded with philosophical contradictions when it comes to the oft-described omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal God of Christianity, and his alleged sacrifice.

~BSM

llamaluvr

This is not so, because the "presupposed conclusions" are based off explicit statements in the Bible. When I offer an interpretation of a passage reconciling the notion that Jesus is God yet Jesus and the Father are separate entities, I do so not because I believe that, but first and foremost because the Bible says those things explicitly. We start with what we know for certain and then move onto the gray area, rather than looking at the gray area, throwing our hands up and claiming that there's a contradiction.

This sounds good in the doctor's office or the lab, but it totally falls apart in the real world. I wasn't a Christian until I was 16, and basically gave it up shortly thereafter until I was 18. There are so many other Christians who did not become so until well after their adulthood. Many others start in the church, drift away, only to come back much later on their own volition. I can't tell you how many non-Christians I've met who's story started out exactly as you said it, and didn't have too much trouble "unlearning it".

If we really know mind-control techiques, well, my church hasn't taught them to me yet :-).

I'm afraid that wind only blows as hard as people are willing the let it. These objections have no impact on the validity of the truth-claims of Christianity, the historical and teaching value of scriptures, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. A conclusion that scripture is "less perfect" because of such evidence is a total non-sequitur.

People would generate just as many objections if we had a full original manuscript of the Gospel of John with Jesus Christ's signature on it.

You have perfect God trying to get the point across to fallen man, all the while allowing him to freely choose his path. Did you honestly expect something else?

I seriously don't get why this doesn't jive with the truth-claims of Christianity. All the mutual-exclusitivity of religions shows is that at least a certain subset of them must be incorrect, and the idea of men forming false religions is consistent with Biblical claims.

Why? Seriously. Were they THAT different from us? Homo sapiens are Homo sapiens, no?

And, not to nitpick, but they weren't actually nomadic ;-). They were a developed agrarian society like the vast majority of us were until around eighteenth century.

I am finding the concept of confirmation bias to be pretty irrelevant in the chosen context. Personally, I've tried pretty hard to put myself in situations where I'd hear things that contradict my beliefs (such as here), but I haven't seen anything compelling. I haven't found *anything* that would amount to a contradiction, and I have people who are throwing my such claims all the time. I know what a contradiction is, and I know how to test for it.

Furthermore, it is equally as reasonable to say that adherents to opposing beliefs are just as susceptible to such things.

But I am going to say that it is unreasonable to say it for either side, at least in this context. Is my belief really an indicator that I'm likely to have a mental condition? Even if it is, is it really worth even mentioning? Couldn't it be that we're both reasonably intelligent people, who, based on personal experiences and research, have come to different conclusions?

One of the favorite quirks of my faith is that the notion that factors unrelated to intelligence or knowledge or upbringing play heavily into one's decision to believe or not to believe.

Any time you have two distinct entities, I don't think it is unreasonable to say that they cannot be separated, even if they are part of one larger body. Having Jesus "cut off" from the Father doesn't make him "not God".

1 and 2 aren't mutually exclusive, and 3 is contradicted by statements regarding 1. Therefore you have a combination of 1 and 2 as being a correct interpretation, and you have to eliminate 3 because it fails the test for logical consistency.

BSM

Keith,

I've enjoyed the discussion but am going to have to wrap it up because my vacation is drawing to an end. I'm going to conclude with a few short comments and the last word can be yours.

1) On contradictions: When I look at the history of how the Bible was assembled, the apparent disagreement between Christians on how to interpret it, its relation to other religious texts and religions (comparative religion),well, Occam's Razor seems to apply. In other words, when confronted with two explanations, an implausible one and a probable one, a rational person should select the probable one. I happen to think that the probable explanation for contradictions is that the Bible is man made period.

2) You write:
Whether it "totally falls apart" is a matter of opinion in my opinion.

Sure, there are exceptions to my generalization. Heck, there are atheists turned Christian, Christians turned atheist, and folks who give up on it all. That being said, I still believe that most religions self-replicate because they are imprinted on people at an early age. I also happen to think that religions in general are best explained by sociology, psychology, and anthropology scroll to the bottom.

Do I think that Christianity in general is some form of evil mind control? No, but I can see how my comments might have given that impression. Certainly, some forms of religion are mind control (even some sects of Christianity). Again, there are social explanations for religious behavior. In fact, other societal behaviors share some interesting commonalities with religion. People say that they are Huskers, Hawkeyes, Hoosiers, Sooners, etc., because they happen to be born into that region. Some interesting group phenomena at work but nothing magical or mystical in my opinion.

3. You write:
Ah you brought up freewill and I almost bit! However, thanks to the Internet, Berggren saved me the trouble of typing. Granted, his essay seeks to disprove the existence of the Christian God. However, I am not concerned with that. Relevant to our conversation he makes some good points. Points that I presume Don et al are also trying to make. These points also have relevance to your comments on freewill and "less than perfect."

Relevant Berggren excerpts:

1) "But, the more liberally inclined Christian may object, if we find one error in any other book, say a school book, we do not thereby throw out the entirety of what has been written in that book: while realising the mistake, we do not automatically assume everything else to be incorrect. So why do we not find this approach appealing when dealing with the Bible? There is a vital difference, and that is that the Bible is said to be the written revelation of an almighty and perfect god. Such a deity cannot, by definition, make a mistake. So if there is just one mistake in the Bible, that mistake makes it clear to us that the Christian god cannot exist."

2) Section 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and section 2.5 for freewill.

3) Part 3, in particular: There is no such objective way of determining whether the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavadgita, the Book of Mormon, the Edda, or Homer are true divine revelations. It is often possible to prove that a certain document is not a true revelation of a certain god (which is what this essay is doing with reference to the Bible and the Christian god), but to prove that a document is truly divine in an objective manner, one would need some type of additional revelation from god, which in itself must be unambiguous. However, if this god can provide such an unambiguous revelation, the question is why he did not produce such absolute clarity in the first place. Without such self-contained evidence, one could never be certain that a document is truly divine."

4) Finally, from the I couldn't have said it better myself department:

4. You write:

Agreed that selective interpretation and confirmation bias cuts both ways. Agreed again that we are both reasonably intelligent persons who have come to different conclusions. However, I still believe that many Christians (fundamentalists in particular) are looking at "what is" from a position of thinking "what should be." In other words, due to cognitive dissonance, they come up with some pretty creative ways to salvage their beliefs. In any event, if I gave the impression that you were anything other than intelligent I apologize and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

It is if they are one and the same. 1+1+1=3 yet Christians say 3 is equal to 1. Truth be told this notion makes my teeth hurt. Whatever the case, God cannot die because he is eternal. Spiritual death is absurd. How can God be separated from himself? Even if he could die or be separated from himself where's the sacrifice if the god in question is omnipotent? He could "separate" himself a thousand times over and re-join himself with the same ease (or murder himself a thousand times over).

In addition, 1+1+1=3 and 3=1 cannot both be true, therefore, according to our human logic and how we define contradictions, this is a contradiction. Now if god is beyond logic and is merely a matter of faith that's all well and good (aside from the fact that the same standard then applies to any religion/god/text). However, if human logic is the only way I can tell if he exists (much less interpret his alleged sacred revelation), then I guess I'm stuck. My logic tells me the notion of the trinity is abusrd.

Moreover, the word Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible; nor, in my opinion, do the scriptures support the notion--especially after looking at church history. It was not until 325 A.D. at Nicaea that the doctrine of the Trinity was decided. Ironically, it was forced through by Athanasius in a Council that was overseen by a murderous emperor who, according to some scholars, thought himself to be God-incarnate. Many of those present at the Council Of Nicaea were opposed the doctrine of the Trinity, including Arius. Even after the Nicene Creed, the Trinity is still being debated to this very day.

Finally, Ingersoll sums up the whole notion best:

On the relevance of agrarian (nit-pick noted) texts to modern times; well, all ancient texts have some value to the study of how societies have evolved (and you might even mine some relevant/relational points to modern times). However, basing one’s life ENTIRELY on a 2,000 year old text is simply absurd in my opinion. Especially when you consider how much society has advanced in the last 100 years. IMO I think its up to humankind to come up with a roadmap for the future and it’s certainly not a 2,000 year old text.

Of course, you needn’t agree.

Regards,

~BSM

llamaluvr

This is dependent upon actually finding contradictions. A cry of "contradiction!" might actually only carry the weight of the boy's cry of "wolf!" Which has basically been my whole point here.

Also, another nitpick- Occam's Razor is not about how to choose between implausible and probable explainations- such a principle seems pretty obvious, and wouldn't get anybody in the history books. It simply states that one should not make more than the minimum number of assumptions (generally in a model).


You're more accurately describing those who simply attend churches, synagogues, and mosques, and participate in cultural/ religious rituals and events rather than actual adherents to a religion. There's a huge difference.

The clarity of something is a very subjective quantification. My certainty of the Bible's divine inspiration is not something I can empirically demonstrate, so, notwithstanding that (and I don't think it should consider that), the above statement is absolutely correct. However, because you can't actually demonstrate the the Bible is lacking in clarity, you can't say that it was definitely not inspired, nor can you ascribe a probability to that.

Also, clarity isn't necessarily the only measure of perfection. Personally, I think it is quite clear to those who take the time to really investigate it, which exercises a motif that the Bible is quite fond of. At the same time, the necessary minimum of the gospel story that need be understood has historically been easily grasped by people across all social divisions and intelligence levels. All the while, the book has not yet been exhausted for it's value as a topic of research and discussion.

Like any engineering project, the Bible would not be perfect for its perfection in one category, but for its excellence in many.


Jesus was "spritiually alive" during the entire ordeal. The only part of him that actually died was the body. He existed at all moments, so his eternity was preserved.

I should respeak on the separation issue. The death of Jesus on the cross has a lot more to do with his "man" qualities than his "God" qualities. The reason he was a suitable sacrifice was that he was a perfect man, not because he was God. It just happened that the only hope for having a perfect man was to have God become one.

That's fuzzy math, because you're not even adding the same things together. It's closer to one arm + one leg + one head = three body parts, and three body parts (plus the rest, I suppose) = one body. So, there you go....

1+1+1+1+1....(from 1 to n) = n, where n is the number of parts in the body
and
n body parts = one body (assuming they are fully assembled)

"Trinity" is a word used to describe something commonly referenced in the Bible. The word was given to this concept more for ease than anything- it sure beats refering to it as "that thing about the 3 parts of the godhead referenced in verse x". It is likely the word was used before Nicaea, and it's likely it would have been used later even if it hadn't had been brought up by some murderous emperor.

So, if we make a roadmap now, when does it become obsolete, and what sort of thing could make it obsolete?

Don't we still commit the same sins described in the Bible? Don't we still experience the same feelings as those described by ancient peoples? The only thing that's changed is the backdrop.