Sheshbazzar

For the size of the cubit to vary from project to project, or to be arbitrary,
would be a grave violation of Lev. 19:35-36, and Deut 25:13-16.
One of the first actions of governments and of nations, is the establishment of precise standards of measure.
My cubit and measuring reed are precise,accurate and invariable unto infinity.
Sheshbazzar

King Rat

I know this will sound flip but that has never stopped me before.

The biggest error is the bible itself. So little of it actually corresponds to reality. Men living thousands of years, talking snakes, magicians, witches, magic staves, giants, "sons of god" mating with humans, curses, rising from the dead, talking asses, many-headed monsters, wheels within wheels, virgin births, flat earth, solid sky, manna, global floods, and on and on. NONE of this garbage corresponds with reality, and is thus in ERROR. How can anyone read this stuff and NOT realize it is fiction?

The Evil One

To recognise that requires the use of common sense. If people were using their common sense, the Bible debate wouldn't exist in the first place.

King Rat

TEO, I've been ruminating on this since you wrote it (11:22 ) and I'm baffled. Not by your comment, but by it's implications.

Where is the common sense?

How does a collection of origin myths, nationalism, morality plays, etc. transmute into a definitive "practical manual" for everything? Maybe three of the Decalogue and the Golden Rule have practical applications, the rest is nonsense. What thinking person with a lick of common sense can say that any portion of Genesis has any correlation to reality? How do ancient Jewish hygiene recommendations relate to our modern world? Don't eat crustaceans or eat a mix of species? Jambalaya is evil?

We atheists can and do make fun of almost every portion of the bible, with good reason IMO. The local theists can defend little bits of the bible, but how could they, in good conscience, defend the ENTIRE bible and still claim to have common sense?

Maybe this should be another thread:

"The Bible: Irrelevant to modern man."
Or, "The Bible: Past it's prime?
Or, The Bible: "Man grew up and it didn't."
Or, The Bible: Stolen from the Jews, want it back?

Mary.

I didn't read all of the responses to this thread, so someone may have answered the question before and I missed it, but I'm going to post my response anyway.

Madkins007 originally asked: My current search is a basic question: "Is there an example of God speaking to someone, or of someone directly quoting God, in which God can be shown to be in substantial error?"

In Jeremiah 7:21, God is quoted by the prophet Jeremiah as saying, "For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."

This is untrue. In Exodus 12, the Passover is instituted with the sacrifice of the Passover lamb prescribed in substantial detail. In Exodus 19, 3 months after leaving Egypt, Moses climbs Mt Sinia and God gives him lots of commandments including 19:24 "You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen..."

In later books of the Torah, God also gives a lot more details about exactly who, when, how and when sacrifices are to be performed.

So despite the fact that Jeremiah is trying to say God prefers obediance to sacrifices, the fact is that God DID give instructions for sacrifices to their ancestors who he'd taken out of Egypt. Jeremiah directly quotes God saying that he didn't.

Hope that fits your criteria for an example of errancy.
Mary.

Madkins007

Thank you for another example to look at!

GakuseiDon

God says "For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices".

God isn't saying "I never spoke of sacrifices". If you read the rest in context, it is clear that God is saying "Go ahead, make your sacrifies. But I didn't bring you guys out just to make sacrifices. I brought you out so that I would be your God, and you would be my people." As you point out, God does talk of sacrifices, both before and after. He is just saying "that isn't the reason I brought you guys out". God is simply pointing out that He doesn't want their sacrifices, He wants their obedience.

Mary.

That's exactly what the text IS saying that God said.

At Exodus 19:5, God also is quoted: "Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treaured possession out of all the peoples." This is before he tells them exactly how to perform the sacrifices. The sacrifice performed exactly how God instructed was part of what it took to BE obediant. There was no obediance without ritual sacrifice.

But last night, I should have typed Exodus 20:24 (not 19:24) for the verse about the making an altar of earth.

Mary.

GakuseiDon

The text is saying "in the day I brought you out of Egypt, I didn't speak of sacrifices". Where in the Bible is the passage that says that God spoke to them about sacrifices in the day they were brought out of Egypt?

God is saying that He didn't bring them out of Egypt to just make sacrifices to Him, but to make Him their (one and only) God. God wants them to make sacrifices, but only to Him. God is angry because they are sacrificing to other gods in His places of worship (Jer 7:18).

Sauron

The phrase "the day" does not mean the exact 24 hour period. I hope that wasn't your argument. You can argue that, but it will only lead to other contradictions and bizarre intereprations elsewhere. (All this assumes that the Exodus was a literal event, which we know realize it was not).

I don't think you have the context of the Jeremiah quotation correct, either. Here's the passage in toto.

JER 7:17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
JER 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
JER 7:19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
JER 7:20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
JER 7:21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
JER 7:22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
JER 7:23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
JER 7:24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
JER 7:25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
JER 7:26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

This is apparently a complaint against Israel, that they are following foreign gods again - a frequent topic in the prophetic books.

No. God is saying, "What do you think you're doing? Are you nuts? I never told you to make burnt sacrifices and drink offerings to foreign gods. I told you to obey me."

So in that light, this verse in Jeremiah wouldn't qualify as an example of errancy, of course. But I don't think your exegesis of the text was correct, either.