Sven

The quality in S&S is poor? Surely you are joking.

:huh: What is this supposed to mean?

Sven

Good luck. :wave:

mdarus

Inerrancy does not mean:
1) There are no variations between translations
2) There are no textual variants
3) There are no variations in spellings of names
4) There are no confusing passages
5) There are no challenges to understanding the text
6) There are no differences in view points of authors
7) There are no false statements quoted
8) There are no apparent contadictions between eyewitness accounts
9) God dictated every word without the authors' own vocabulary, personality, style and experience influencing what was written.

Even though most theologically literate Christians would probably agree with these 9 points, "Inerrancy" is a position in a debate among Christians about how to interpret the Bible. Chrisitans hold a wide spectrum of opinions about how to properly read and understand the Bible. Among Christians who believe in "inerrancy", there is another debate about whether the Received Text (KJV) represents an additional divine act of clearing up confusion over textual variants. I have noticed you do not always get a mainstream Christian response to your issues on this board. The KJV flag wavers are not main stream.

mdarus

It seems Jesus made a career out of correcting misunderstandings about the prophecies of the Messiah. The Christian view is that Jesus was right and first century Jews had it confused. The good news that Jesus offered was the his view was better than expected. Political liberation would have been a poor substitue for liberation of the soul.

Toto

You are telling me that inerrancy does not mean that there are no errors. What does it mean?

mdarus

Toto asked,
There is a fairly wide spectrum among Christians about what "inerrancy" means. Some say it refers only to matters of "faith and practice." The would mean that the Bible is accurate in what it reveals about God and how people should worship and serve God. This group would say there may be errors about history and science. These "errors" would not diminsih the Bible's authrority over theological issues. They would be consistent with the human means God used to reveal himself.

Others will say it is accurate about "all subjects it makes assertions" about. This group defends the Bible's accuracy about history, origins, and science. This may seem bold on its face but they are careful to differentiate between statements that describe how things look to the oberver and what may actually be. They would say that "the sun stood still" would be accurate even if this was an interuption of the earth's rotation (still quite miraculous).

These are just two examples of a wide spectrum of definitions of "inerrancy" among Christians. Primarily, it indicates a philosophy about how a Christian interprets the Bible. One's view of "inerrancy" colors whether one is more literal or figuartive (no one is likely to be 100% literal or 100% figurative). It also affects the Bible translations that a Christian may choose.

In the bulk of evangelical Christianity, "inerrancy" is a relatively minor issue (although some individuals get pretty hot about it). There seems to be a broad concensus that the Bible is reliable and authoritative and that most "errors" can be explained although some are more difficult than others. The teaching of the Bible is seen a cohesive whole as long as you can factor in its character of being a progressive revelation of theology within changing contexts. Most evangelicals (on their best days) are comfortable comparing Bible translations and discussing textual variants without diminishing the divine authority of the Bible.

Johnny Skeptic

The point is, did God inspire the writing of the originals verbatim or not? I don't know why he would have since he allowed hundreds of millions of Christians to die without ever having heard the Gospel message. What good are inerrant Gospels to people who never heard about them?

sharon45

First of all, the religion revolves around and is built from the text and it sees no problem absolutely with the text just as you.

Second, the text depends on others much like it to supposedly defend its placement and purpose.

Third, the text is flawed as the others like it are also flawed in their beliefs and so the religion is flawed by accepting these instead of realizing the mistakes.

I could instead ask the same of you. I am not making assumptions. I am using the actual prophecies from the OT in reference to the expected Messiah, not creating my own of what I would think or like to be prophecy to further an agenda like the NT has done.

What christians do not understand is that the Messiah prophecies have built-in fail-safes that prevent just anyone determined enough with a bag of tricks to breach.

sharon45

It would seem this probably to christians yes.
Yes, a convenient view.
Sorry, but instead it is the christians' belief that remains the poor substitute for the actual prophecy. While the Jews continually wait patiently for their Messiah the first time, it is still logically impossible for the christians' Messiah to ever come back since he was never here the first time.

sharon45

I would disagree with this.
What should be the main point is consistency of which the bible does not contain.