Gamera

What does it mean to be "inerrant"?

If the bible is making factual claims, then it is subject to empirical verification or rebuttal.

If the bible is making spiritual claims, using metaphor to discuss the human condition, then it is not subject to empirical scrutiny.

Only a dunce (i.e., a religious rightwinger) would make the former claim.

Harry Bosch

There are fundamentalists who believe that the bible is inerrant but that the earth isn’t flat (as an example). They reconcile this by saying that the incorrect statements in the bible are metaphors. The power of denial is one of the most powerful human emotions that we have!

Sven

Please explain which "metaphor to discuss the human condition" the bible uses here (NIV):

Psalm 93:1 [...] The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.

SPC773

I interpret your post as insinuating this verse is not speaking metaphorically, but making factual claims.

I would have read the verse as speaking poetically or figuratively about the permanency of the world, or the solidity or soundness of creation.

The psalmist says immediately prior to that phrase that the LORD is “robed with majesty” and “armed with strength”. And later he says the seas have “lifted up their voice”.

It’s hard to imagine those statements as anything other than poetic or figurative language, so why should we not accept that the phrase you cite in verse 1 is figurative or poetic?

SPC773

Sorry, I just saw the other thread discussing this verse.

The thread looks a bit fargone for me to join it now.

Sven

Well, that's nice, but I was asking Gamera - who just left two choices. The one you bring up was not mentioned as a possibility.

And you brought up just the same non sequitur which buckshot used - than one verse metaphorical means entire chaper metaphorical.

buckshot23

It seems Sven believes we should take every verse on it's own and interpret them as seperate entities. It doesn't matter to him at all what was being stated or what the subject is he can rip verses out of context all he likes. Yet complains when he believes creationists take evolutionists out of context. Yet feels no problem in quote mining the bible.:huh:

Gamera

Genesis 2 says that the man and woman become one flesh. Jesus quotes the passage in his teachings on marriage contra divorce under the Law.

Either that means they literally merged like a blob of protoplasm (very unlikely) or it means that their marriage involves a closeness that is as if they were one body, and we are invited to consider the spiritual dimensions of such a union.

That's one example of about million in the Hebrew and Christian texts.

buckshot23

<sarcasm>Nope this is the bible we are talking about! It must be taken literally in every verse on it's own! Jesus believed that Adam and Eve became one flesh literally. <off/sarcasm>

For some, metaphor and bible are mutually exclusive. Which is evidence of their expectations and nothing else.

Gamera

I enjoy throwing the "one flesh" passage in the face of the literalists, since it comes right after the 6 day creation. If the take the creation narrative literally, they are stuck with the one flesh narrative as literal, leading to an absurdity that even they can't avoid being embarrassed about.

Since clearly Genesis 2 is intended figuratively, it strongly suggests that Genesis 1 is also metaphorical and not intended as a biology textbook.