proudliberal

If it ain't inerrant why wont jesus give me the million dollars I asked for,he says ask and you will receive.

20 years ago I got saved(you cant lose your salvation even if you live like the devil,another thread)so he is supposed to give me my million dollars,heck he gave paris hilton millions and to my knowledge she aint saved,what gives?

GenesisNemesis

The Bible is as "unique" as the Koran or the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Definition of "Continuity", please.

So?



So?

So?

There are teachings in other religions as well. Did you know that?

Yes. Holy Scriptures are bound to have an influence on civilization.

Try this for starters. And this.

What's "manuscript evidence"?

Well duh. The Bible is very popular. But the Greatest Book In the World? I think that's a stretch.

No, His Holy Word had to survive, because it was necessary for God to continue His eternal existence. Does that make sense? No.

Paranoia! Yummy!

Has the devil ever won? The whole Cosmic Battle between Good and Evil just confuses me.

Jedi Mind Trick

Well, I'm disappointed BJ. I thought you would actually defend inerrancy, but all you did was assert it. Oh and, try to find a higher caliber apologist; Josh McDowell is the best you can do?

Oh, I do fear for Johnny Skeptic's ability to counter this opener from you... NOT!

Johnny Skeptic

That is easily explained. In the first few centuries A.D., orthodox Christians (orthodox in their own view) under the protection of Emperor Constantine systematically destroyed every competing document that they could get their hands on. Some of those competing documents were discovered during the 1900's at Nag Hamadi in the Middle East. Interested readers can do a Google search and learn more about the Nag Hamadi texts. As noted, award-winning liberal Christian Bible scholar Elaine Pagels has said, "The victors [orthodox Christians] rewrote history, 'their way,'" to which I will add "The victors preserved their texts, 'their way.'" The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004 says "By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution."

Bible John, you ought to know that if you have enough military power, you can eliminate your opposition's ability to pursue their goals. However, might does not make right.

Well, although Christianity had a 600 year head start on Islam, today, Islam has over one billion followers, and is growing faster than Christianity is. It will probably overtake Christianity within the next fifty years, not that numbers has anything to do with truth.

I do not know what you are trying to accomplish. This thread is about inerrancy and divine inspiration of the originals, not the survival of copies of copies of first and second century Bible texts. Even if the original Bible was inerrant, what did it say, and did the writers always speak for God and never for themselves with the mistaken assumption that they were speaking for God? For instance, regarding what the Bible says about homosexuality, what evidence do you have that the writers were speaking for God and not for themselves with the mistaken assumption that they were speaking for God?

Even if Jesus rose from the dead, that does not help you because all that that has to do with is power. It does not reasonably prove WHY Jesus rose from the dead. If Elvis Presley rose from the dead, you certainly would not worship him. The anonymous Gospel writers almost always wrote in the third person, not in the first person. They almost never claimed that they saw Jesus perform miracles. They almost never revealed who their sources were. It is well-known that Matthew and Luke borrowed a good deal from Mark. The books of John and Acts were written much too late to be of any use to Christians. Regarding the miracles that Jesus supposedly performed, today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. Why do you believe that it was any different back then? Regarding contemporary miracles, you have tried to reasonably prove that God performs miracle healings today, but you have failed to do so. Would you care to try again?

In my opinion, these issues all get down to the character of God. You believe that a good God would choose to inspire and preserve the Bible. I agree. A few days ago, Gundulf and I were debating inerrancy and divine inspiration of the originals in this thread. I finally realized that the character of God was actually the fundamental issue, so I suggested to Gundulf that we continue our discussions in the thread that is titled "God is corrupt." We are now discussing these issues at that thread. I now make that same suggestion to you and anyone else who is interested.

You and I have already had a formal debate on the character of God. I look forward to discussing that issue some more with you. The character of God is my favorite debate topic.

Just to make sure that you understand what my position is, here it is again stated a little differently:

The issues of inerrancy and divine inspiration of the originals are actually secondary issues. The primary issue is the character of God. A good God would want to inspire and preserve the originals, but is he good? It will not do you any good to say that God is good because the Bible says that he is good. That would be like a witness in a court trial trying to corroborate his own testimony by saying that he told the truth because he said that he told the truth. Please feel free to use Biblical and non-Biblical evidence to defend your claim that God is good.

Hundreds of millions of people died without hearing the Gospel message because God refused to tell them about it. How do you account for that?

Gooch's dad

Hey BibleJohn, thanks! We don't get such easy soft pitches like this, more than once every few months. This is a downright feeding frenzy.

For good reason. "The Bible is inerrant" is nearly a meaningless statement. You aren't going to take that tact of "the original autographs are perfect" are you? Shame, shame.

crazyfingers

Statements of faith, made as if they were statements of fact, remain still statements of faith - believed despite the lack of evidence.

Jobar

IMO, I think he should change his screen name to 'Bibliolator John', given his confusion of words about his god, with his god.

BJ, even if you think your god is perfect, and holy- the words imperfect humans have written about him are NOT perfect or holy.

The map IS NOT the territory.

The name IS NOT the thing named.

The word IS NOT the thing.

And to prove this WRT the Bible- tell me the name of Jesus' paternal grandfather.
Luke 3:23
Matt. 1:16

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Bible John: My reply to your post is post #24.

Toby Beau

unique = inerrant. Yeah sure.
...
wait, hold on... what?


You know, EVERY BOOK is unique in it's own way. I could count up a million reasons why The Cat in the Hat is unique. Does that mean it's magic?

DBT

Inerrent? - If you happen to ignore all the contradictions and absurdities....