Roger Pearse

Well said.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Dean Anderson

What 'unstated methodology'? I've stated my methodology clearly. The Biblical text explicitly says that event B happened X years after event A. My methodology is to take that statement to mean that - according to the author of that passage - event B happened X years after event A. No inference is necessary.

My "presumptions" are clear.

1) The Bible explicitly says in various places that event B happened X years after event A.
2) By simple mathematics, if B happens X years after A, and C happens Y years after B, then C must happen (X+Y) years after A.
3) Therefore, according to what the Bible says, event C happened (X+Y) years after A.

Whether you believe that this is inerrant or not (and whether you believe it should be taken literally or metaphorically) is up to you. I am merely pointing out what the Bible says in direct response response to someone who is claiming that it does not, in fact, say it.

No. You have rhetorically implied that I have dubious assumptions, not indicated that I have.

Anyway, I don't drink. What's your excuse? If you think this discussion is a waste of time, no-one is forcing you to take part in it.

No, I'm asserting no such thing. To ascribe a single literary kind to "the book of Genesis" as a whole is folly. It is clearly composed of many parts in a variety of styles/kinds.

Then why bring what those other people thought into the discussion in the first place, other than as irrelevant rhetoric?

My statements were a direct response to real comments by posters on this thread, who made claims about what the Bible does and does not say.

Roger Pearse

Nothing in this seems to require further response from me, tho, as I think that I have already dealt with this twice now.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

This is quite clearly a straw man. Dean has nowhere stated or implied such a ridiculous standard.

Dean's "silent presumption" is simply that the text be taken at face value. IOW, the text is taken as saying exactly what it means regardless if that was the meaning of the original author or the meaning created by a subsequent editor(s). Dean is simply reading the collected stories as they stand and as though they were a connected whole but Roger can't admit that because he has to reject Dean's reading. It just wouldn't do for a Christian to declare that the Bible should not be read as it stands or as though it was a coherent whole so a straw man has to be fabricated.

The text reads exactly as Dean has explained but that obtains a silly conclusion and Roger can't have his sacred book spouting nonsense. Therefore, according to Roger's "silent presumption", a face value reading of this collection of stories cannot be the correct reading.

Roger Pearse

You're welcome to your opinion. He's been very silent about his standards generally. That in fact he has something of the kind in mind seems inevitable to me. Reiterating a demand merely seems funny to me, in my cynical way.

The practical difference between this statement and the one above from which you dissented so violently seems non-existent to me. Why the refusal to engage with my point?

But don't you just want me to accept the debate in the terms that you have drawn up, which pre-determine the conclusion? -- Both of you have merely reiterated your demand without paying attention to what I said. Indeed both of you have got very truculent with it! Hey, a couple of simple questions has reduced you to spluttering personal assertions about me, which is gratifying if one is as cynical as I am, but hardly constructive. Why not THINK about what I asked? Is it so very difficult to try to address them? Rude reiteration is not much of a reply, you know.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

Regarding the confusion between inerrancy and literalism, the
most important issue is whether or not the copies that we have today are much different from the originals. If they are, Christians have some problems. If they aren't, that would not be possible to reasonably prove.

Well, what about these questions? Inerrantists claim that God inspired the writing of the original Bible, and that the copies that we have today are not much different from the originals, but why should anyone assume that? Regarding what the Bible says about homosexuality, I am not aware of any good reasons why anyone should assume that the writers were speaking for God and not for themselves. Are you? In addition, I am not aware of any good reasons why anyone should assume that Jesus ever said anything about tithing and divorce. Are you?

Why must God conform to the ideals that fundamentalist Christians want him to conform to? Do fundamentalist Christians claim that God is obligated to provide Christians with copies that are not much different from the originals? After all, God refused to provide any texts at all to hundreds of millions of people who died without hearing the Gospel message. What good is an inerrant or an errant Bible to people who do not have access to it?

What did God have against people in the first century who lived far away from Palestine? He refused to tell any of them about the Gospel message. I guess that God was more fond of people who lived closer to Palestine, right, or was it the case that the Gospel message was spread entirely by human effort according to the prevailing means of communciation, transportation, printing, and translation of a given time period?

pob14

I don't know the difference; what do the two terms mean?

Amaleq13

This is as absurdly false as the straw man you fabricated.

If your caricature accurately conveyed the notion that Dean was simply taking the collected texts at face value, it wouldn't be a straw man.

If you truly think taking the collected texts at face value is the same as reading them "as if written in a textbook of evolution composed at a US university some time after 1918", then I question whether a rational discussion with you is possible.

You made no point, Roger. You've simply attempted a distraction from the observation that a face-value reading of the collection obtains an absurd result. You've also made it quite clear that you do not share the views of those Christians from whom Dean has taken his lead.

I haven't drawn anything up. You are not required to defend positions you don't hold, Roger. But neither is anyone else required to refrain from attacking positions you don't hold.

What "demand"?

I wouldn't have recognized your straw man if I wasn't paying attention, Roger.

You don't share the same assumptions as the Christians from whom Dean borrows his approach. We get it. That really doesn't change the fact that those assumptions are held by certain Christians and do result in an absurd conclusion, does it?

Not as gratifying as knowing I am right about you. You are offended at the ignorant rabble who get lumped in with you as a "fundamentalist". We all have our cross to bear, Roger. :angel:

Johnny Skeptic

If humans have existed for at least 25,000 years, of what use are Biblical geneaologies? If humans have existed for 6,000 years or less, what evidence is there that such is the case?

Johnny Skeptic

What are the best ways to determine whether or not the Bible writers ever spoke for themselves instead of for God? Why should anyone believe that God ever inspired writings regarding homosexuality, divorce, and tithing? Is God obligated to provide Christians with copies of texts that essentially represent the originals? I assume not since he rufused to provide any texts at all to hundreds of millions of people who died without hearing the Gospel message.

In the first century, people who lived closer to Palestine were more likely to know about the Gospel message. They were just lucky, right?