WishboneDawn

Some do, some don't. I put up with some generalities about christians but that one is a pet peeve.

If you didn't mean to be general, please use better language.

If you honestly think that's the case, please prove it.

Roger Pearse

Until you have a definition of "inerrant", and clear evidence as to who holds it and whether the definition is accurate and critical, won't these comments be a petitio principi?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

WishboneDawn

A good point. Inerrancy often gets mixed up with literalism and they aren't the same thing. I think that may be part of the case here.

Johnny Skeptic

A web definition for Biblical inerrancy is "Biblical inerrancy is the view that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and is in every detail infallible and without error. This view was ably expressed in 1978 in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, an interdenominational statement of evangelical scholars and leaders to defend Biblical inerrancy against the trend toward liberal and neo-orthodox conceptions of scripture."

Now obviously that does not include copying errors.

Roger, do you believe that Adam and Eve were real people, and that committed the first sins? Do you believe that a great fish swallowed Jonah, that a donkey talked, and that there was a global flood? Regarding homosexuality, do you believe that there is a reasonable possibility that the writers were speaking for themselves and not for God?

Roger Pearse

I don't know what "literalism" might mean either.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

WishboneDawn

There are some people who believe the bible is inerrant but not historically factual or literal.

Roger Pearse

Unless we presume that Jesus, in his parables, intended to convey information about various individuals, rather than tell parables, we must presume that at least some parts of the bible are narrative fiction, told because human beings find educational fiction useful. This point of view is expressly stated by Eusebius of Caesarea in the Praeparatio Evangelica book 12, chapter 31.

I know that some less educated atheists profess to be unable to understand the difference between a fiction and a forgery, not least with reference to this very text. But in my slightly silly way, this leads me naturally to the question of whether there are atheist books of children's stories, and if so, how those atheists read them.

I don't believe that the bible itself, or Jesus, or the fathers make any determination on such matters, myself. That being the case, the whole basis for the initial post would seem to be very shaky.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

WWFStern

Are the scientifically impossible Jesus resurrection and Lazarus resurrection tales also to be taken metaphorically or allegorically? Because, clearly, brain death is irreversible and thus those tales could not scientifically have happened.

Roger Pearse

I do not see how this connects to my comment -- sorry.

Incidentally you might wish to know that scientists as a rule laugh at rationalists. Your post presumes silently that rationalism is true, which makes it somewhat meaningless.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Von Smith

I don't think it is really necessary to pick at the contents of the Bible to demonstrate the folly of inerrancy; the proposition is implausible on its face. What is the prior probability of any given book being inerrant, especially one with the scope and patchwork history of the Bible? And where is the evidence that it is, in fact, inerrant?

These are the only two questions that a skeptic need demand of the proverbial chorus of crickets before rejecting the notion of inerrancy. Until somebody can make a strong, cogent case for such an extraordinary claim, picking at the details is secondary. Ironically, of course, most of the problems and contradictions in the Bible were spotted some time ago, precisely by those who thought it must be inerrant, and who inadvertently strengthened the evidence to the contrary in the course of trying to rationalize them away with interpretation.