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That statement is not valid. You have not been able to determine the attributes of a God. Gods may have the abilty to deliberately contradict themselves to acheive some pre-determined outcome.

That statement is not valid. I am extremely interested in the information in the Bible. It is for that reason I have found the Bible to be fictitious.

No, rhutchin, that's illogical. You work with what the Bible says and then you detrmine its truthfulness and whether or not some God is the source.

Sauron

No, I'm not.

No, that is your personal presumption, flavored by your own theology.

If you ask a dozen different christians, they'll give a dozen different varieties on this. Many would disagree with your "underlying context", and some would go so far as to question whether certain books even qualified as part of the bible.

Don't try to pass off your personal denominational viewpoint as the some kind of globally-agreed underlying context.

You also dodged my point about the Quran, Bhagavad-Gita, etc. If we accept your theological view as the underlying context, why wouldn't we accept these others as well?

It is, because you want to ignore out the possibility of contradiction, editing, etc. in these verses.

Put another way: it is precisely because you aren't claiming that these verses are infallible that makes the discussion about contradictions a valid game for discussion.

But if a contradiction exists, then you can rule out the possibility of God being the source. Why wouldn't determining whether a contradiction exists (or not) be a key part of the discussion?

No, we don't. We take the text on face value and see what happens.

Johnny Skeptic

There are numerous Christian web sites that disagree with you. I will be quoting them extensively. Noted fundamentalist Christian scholar, author, and Bible commentary editor F. F. Bruce was not an inerrantist.

What good are inerrant Scriptures if they can be changed and used to deceive some people? What good were inerrant Scriptures to the hundreds of millions of people who died without hearing the Gospel message. Why do you suppose that a God who allowed hundreds of millions of people to die without hearing the Gospel message would be interested in preserving an inerrant Bible? What is “the Bible”, the Protestant version, or the Roman Catholic version.

Of course, you lose hand down because rational minded and fair minded people are not able to will themselves to accept a God who endorses favoritism, reveals himself to some people who never accept him, refuses to reveal himself to some people who would accept him if they had better evidence that he exists, makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11, punishes people for sins that their grandparents committed, reference Exodus 20:5, and injures and kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout and faithful followers, and babies, even though the Bible says that killing people is wrong.

The following is from the EofG forum, which you conveniently DID NOT reply to:

Actually, the hundreds of millions of people who died without hearing the Gospel message because God did not want them to hear about it were at a decided disadvantage. Human effort never has been, and never will be sufficient to let everyone know about the Gospel message, which is just as your unmerciful God intends for it to be. Following your own same line of reasoning, if no one wanted to share the Gospel message with anyone, no one would ever get saved. How utterly absurd. That would be like saying that if a lifeguard at a beach refused to save drowning people, no one else should bother to save drowning people. Get this: Decent people make themselves available to help out when indecent people refuse to do so.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, it is to be expected that no one would know about his specific existence and will except through human effort. If he does exist, if he has good character, he would not go out of his way to make it appear to billions of people that human effort alone has accounted for the spread of Christianity.

If a man had two children who were drowning, and refused to try to save both of them, he would be ostracized from society, even from Christian society, and he would possibly be convicted of negligence and sent to prison. If an ordinary man were willing to suffer and die for some people (some skeptics are willing to suffer and die for some people), and killed some people (God kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout followers, and babies), he would be considered irrational, bi-polar, and mentally incompetent. Why should the behavior of a God be considered any differently? No rational minded and fair minded person can will himself to accept a God who is a hypocrite, a God who has no concept of fair, merciful, and just punishment. Making people blind, deaf, and dumb, and killing one fourth of the people in Europe with the Bubonic Plague is most certainly NOT fair, merciful, and just punishment. Are you so naïve and gullible that you will claim that those detestable practices provide benefits to mankind?

Sauron

Oh, really? That doesn't leave you with much excuse for your original inaccurate summation, does it?

I mean, Carrier's commentary on what it takes to understand these languages goes much further than your inaccurate attempt at summation (above).

Now you seem to be agreeing with Carrier (i.e., that there is more to translation than just understanding the language), and then you add further caveats. You seem to be indicting your own original, incomplete summation, then.

OK. But now that you understand that translation is more than just transposing words, don't go off the deep end in the opposite direction and try to mystify the process.

Also keep in mind that the koine Greek of the NT was pretty abysmal; you won't find the highly literate and elegant Greek of some other sources. For lack of a better phrase, the NT greek is fairly inelegant.

1. If you have evidence of any bias introduced by his research, by all means present it.

2. How do you know that Carrier's education is purely secular, or that he cannot understand these terms?

Since many other scholars of NT Greek (Metzger, for example) concur with Carrier in 98% of what he says, it seems tha the historical-critical methodology is worth far more than you want to admit.

Sauron

No, you're overstating the difficulties, in the hope that you can balance one sympathic expert against a host that disagree with you. The more mystical you can make the translation process, the more you hope you can introduce ambiguity and nuance and create wiggle room for your interpretation.

No; they're trying to rescue creationism from the trash can. The majority of them don't even understand the basics of evolution; given that fact, they couldn't possibly point out any alleged shortcomings.


Creationists have neither quality, nor quantity, of argument.

Sauron

By *your* definition.

And thus we get to the root of your problem: insistence that your own personal theology is the same as globally accepted definitions.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: Consider the following:

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../4evide92.html

Farrell Till

Despite the editing process by which the canonical books were selected, the biblical text is still fraught with inconsistencies that make Mr. Miller's claim of "unequaled internal harmony" a myth that is believed only by gullible bibliolaters who haven't bothered to investigate the claim. As noted in an earlier article ("A Perfect Work of Harmony?" TSR, Spring 1990, p. 12), whoever wrote 2 Kings 10:30 obviously believed that Jehu's massacre of the Israelite royal family was the will of Yahweh, but the prophet Hosea just as obviously disagreed and pronounced a curse upon the house of Jehu to avenge the "blood of Jezreel" that Jehu shed in the massacre (Hosea 1:4). Apparently, the "inspired" prophets and biblical writers had their theological and political differences as much as modern-day religious leaders.

Any present day inerrantist would affirm with his dying breath that the book of Ezekiel was unquestionably inspired of God, yet the rabbis who made the canonical selection were of a different mind. A bitter controversy surrounded this book before it was finally selected for inclusion in the Hebrew canon. The rabbis were bothered by chapters 40-48, which contained information that was difficult to reconcile with the Torah. Ezekiel 46:6 is just one example of the problems the rabbis had to deal with in these chapters. Here Ezekiel said that the sacrifice for the new moon should consist of "a [one] young bullock without blemish, six lambs, and a ram," but the instructions for this same sacrificial ceremony in Numbers 28:11 stipulated two young bullocks, seven lambs, and a ram." The discrepancy or, if you please, lack of "internal harmony" is readily apparent to anyone who wants to see it.

At least it was apparent to the rabbis who had to decide whether the book should be considered canonical. According to Hebrew tradition, Rabbi Haniniah ben Hezekiah retired to a room with 300 "measures of oil" and worked day and night until he arrived at explanations that would "dispose of the discrepancies" (The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, Cambridge University press, 1970, p. 134). One wonders why such an undertaking as this was necessary to decide the canonicity of a book that exhibits "unequaled internal harmony." Could it be that Rabbi Haniniah ben Hezekiah was merely the Bible inerrantist of his day, who rather than accepting the face value of what was written spent several days searching for innovative interpretations that would make doctrinally embarrassing passages not mean what they obvi- ously were intended to mean?

I could discuss many other textual inconsistencies, but these are sufficient to demolish Mr. Miller's claim of "unequaled internal harmony" in the Bible. This claim has been preached and preached and preached from fundamentalist pulpits, but it simply is not true.

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../5frust96.html

Farrell Till

He complained that I had quoted the KJV on page 9 when I referred to Paul's speech at Antioch of Pisidia [to show a discrepancy in Paul's math and the claim in 1 Kings 6:1 that construction on the temple had begun 480 years after the exodus], but if he had looked at the passage carefully, he would surely have seen that the language in the quotation is too modern to be from the KJV. It is, in fact, from the New King James Version. I certainly don't think that the KJV is the only "reliable" translation. As a matter of fact, I am aware of many flaws in this translation, and Conklin may be surprised to learn that even when I was a fundamentalist preacher in the '50s, I didn't use the KJV. My preferred version was the ASV. Conklin said that if I had "checked out the text in some scholarly commentaries," I would have found that the judges had come "some time after, not during, the 450 years." Well, first of all, I wonder if Mr. Conklin thinks that I just got up one morning and decided that I would start publishing The Skeptical Review, not having given any time at all to researching the subject. The truth is that I put about 25 years into seriously researching biblical inerrancy before I began publishing The Skeptical Review. That research involved reading the apologetic works of such "scholars" as Josh McDowell, Gleason Archer, William Arndt, John Haley, and others, so I am well aware that there is no such thing as a biblical discrepancy that confirmed inerrantists have not "explained" with some kind of how-it-could-have-been hypothesis. The discrepancy between Paul's speech and 1 Kings 6:1 is no exception. I know what the experts have said, but I know too that their "explanations" are unsatisfactory.

I'm not so sure that Mr. Conklin knows what the apologists have said about this particular discrepancy, because he contends that the rule of the judges "came some time after, not during, the 450 years." If that is so, then the discrepancy is even greater than if we include the rule of the judges in the 450 years. I'll leave it to him to think about it and try to figure out how that his explanation makes the discrepancy even greater.

Finally, he complained that I had used the number 40 in calculating how long Saul had reigned, but I used it only because Paul said in his speech that Saul had reigned 40 years (Acts. 13:21). Is it my fault that the Bible says what it says? I really suspect that the real problem here is that Mr. Conklin is just another frustrated inerrantist who can't refute arguments against inerrancy, and so he chooses to complain and quibble. If he has reasonable evidence that the Bible is inerrant, why doesn't he let us see it. I will gladly publish it.

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../1front95.html

Farrell Till

An old Simon and Garfunkle song spoke of the sound of silence, a term that is becoming more and more descriptive of the way that Christian fundamentalists are choosing to respond to the evidence that disputes the Bible inerrancy doctrine. Long-time subscribers to The Skeptical Review know that we have always had an editorial policy that grants equal space to inerrancy believers who want to respond to our articles. In view of their dogmatic claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, one would think that there would have been a mad rush by fundamentalists to take advantage of our offer so that they could enlighten us silly skeptics who reject the inerrancy doctrine, but instead they have consistently run from the opportunity to present their evidence to the hundreds of atheists and skeptics who subscribe to our paper.

Johnny: Rhutchin, you have some homework to do, and this is just the beginning. The Secular Web has over 300 articles on inerrancy, and that does not include thousands more at the Internet. I suggest that you contact Farrell Till and let him give you a lesson on Biblical inerrancy. You could also challenge him to a formal debate here at the Secular Web. He sometimes participates in debates at this forum. You have opened up a can of worms regarding an issue that you know little about, and now you have to fish with them.

What motive could God possibly have to preserve an inerrant Bible? We already know enough about his detestable character to know that preserving an inerrant Bible is not his intention. Such a motive would only be possibly for a consistently loving, compassionate, caring God. We know that God is not like that. How can babies learn about an inerrant Bible if God kills them?

Sauron

No, it cannot. Since we know of interpolations and mistakes, there can be no assumptions granted here. You need to prove whatever assumptions you want the rest of us to accept.

The reason "not" is given above.

We debate inerrancy to see if the bible literalists can satisfy the conditions above.

Pretty simple, actually.

rhutchin

They probably do think for themselves. The problem with the articles cited is that they did not write down their thoughts with regard to the issues in 2 Peter 3:9 and thereby allow us to know what they were thinking on these issues.

Yep. Problem is, they just don't explain 2 peter 3;9.

So

Everyone (Calvinists, Arminians, and all other non-universalists) except the universalists claim that God IS willing that some will perish (even the JWs make this claim, I think).

So, what is the relevance to 2 Peter 3:9 if those you cite oppose Calvinism but also believe that God is willing that some will perish?

Interesting. Here is a guy who apparently believes in a limited atonement arguing that God IS NOT willing that any should perish (well, not really, since he refers to Calvin's explanation which explains that God is willing that some perish but doesn't come out and say so in this verse).

As Calvin says, God saves some and some some He doesn't

So that means your view is that God saves some and some He doesn't save.

So, do you know what the Calvinist vs Arminian argument is? It has nothing to do with whether God saves some and not others.

From what I have read, everyone agrees that God saves some and not others. So.

rhutchin

I always did like Farrell Till. There are some difficulties in the Biblical texts, and I think Till knows all of them (he ought to given all the work he has done). They tend to be of the nature that Till has described. They deal with minor and insignificant situations and almost always involve a difference in numbers. In some cases, the difficult texts appear to have been written by the same historian who apparently knew something that we don't.

So, you have uncovered the problems that characterize less than 1 percent of the Biblical texts none of which are significant and all seem to be isolated such that they do not impact anything else in the Bible and for which no explanation exists.

I have looked at many of the problem passages, but the resolution of the problems usually requires that a person be very intimate with the Hebrew language which I am not. If you memorize Till, you can be proud of yourself.