justsumner

After reading Gastrich's blatter, I found this site very interesting.... http://www.durangobill.com/JasonGastrich.html

When scientists attempted to supress Immanuel Velikophski(sp?), the religious went bannanas. Now we can see they are as bad if not worse. Big surprise eh?

CX

Just to throw my hat into the ring. My general impression of the SAB is that it is ideological tractate more than a sober estimation of biblical inconsistency.

Toto

Panda's Thumb page with referencea to Gastrich

This sounds like a SLAPP. I wonder if that statute would cover this.

GakuseiDon

Then inerrantists aren't literalists. That's how they get around some of the contradictions.

To comment on interpretations of the Bible: yes. It should go both ways, as well.

PoodleLovinPessimist

Some inerrantists claim to be literalists. This distinction is important if one is asserting that the bible can be found to be inerrant, or whether it is assumed to be inerrant. The latter case is not really interesting, philosophically, at least in my opinion. It doesn't seem all that difficult to hold anything inerrant if you can rearrange the context and interpretation.

Both ways?

This gets to the heart of one of my pet peeves about xianity. To be a good xian, It's not enough for me, as an ordinary man, to read the bible. I must either become an expert in a scientific discipline, or cede the authority of my most basic beliefs to other experts. I don't (in principle) mind ceding my moral authority to God, but I won't ever cede my moral authority to another human being.

Magdlyn

I do not think the term "good Christian" is at all helpful. The phrase is banal and meaningless.

Everyone tends to define it differently, if they use it at all.

Jorgen

I don't doubt that he is serious. The SAB is typical of 'contradiction-list' sites on the internet: shallow, badly informed, and showing no discrimination. Most of the so-called 'contradictions' in his list are nothing of the sort. By listing non-contradictions with the actual contradictions, Steve does little to convince inerrantists. They see that some of the so-called contradictions are not contradictions at all, and justifiably (although incorrectly) dismiss the whole list.

Clearly the bible contains many errors and contradictions. But the SAB is ineffective in proving this.

Jorgen

version

Hi,

First post here but been an avid reader of II for years.

I would also like to know what the criteria is for determining what is figurative, or literal. If, as someone said earlier, that common usage can be used as an indicator for knowing which term should apply to a passage, then surely common usage (sense?) should be applied universally, in accordance with basic knowledge of our world. What I mean is, when we hear that Jesus is the Son of God, or that he was born of a virgin, then isn't it common sense to say that this is also figurative, and not literal?

Then again, surely common usage is very subjective.

Regards.