Sven

They read it as a modern science book. Yes, literally.
OK, I think your point was more about conventions and behaviour of people in ancient days - perhaps Genesis was a bad example.

Vinnie

Love will conquer all....

(my responses in bold). will go through each point, where you agree I will just mention this and pass over it:


[1] Assume the Biblical Works are not Like other similar Ancient Works Which All contain Errors (e.g. Josephus). Also assume your Holy Book is true while other holy books are false and apply different standards to each.

G: Disagree. Inerrantists don't apply their standards to other holy books, AFAIK. They generally have no interest in doing so.

Vinnie: But one has to ignore them to do this. That's the point. They won't give them equal footing as their own book. It is at least special pleading. Why the bible over the Koran? Why the genesis myth over all the other myths? Hy the intracanonical gospels over the extracanonical ones? And when they do evaluate other religious claims and texts we have caricature and misrepresentation.



[2] Agree.

[3] Agree.

[4] Agree.


[5] Assume the Bible is all one work and not rather a collection of individual books. Canonization has been proven and can be ignored in ALL discussions on the Bible.

G: Disagree. I don't think inerrantists quite believe this. A part of the position is that the individual authors' personalities were not impeded in their writings.

LOL Did you read my debate with Robertlw?? Also, the hermeneutic satired in number two that you "AGREED" with practically screams this. Canonization is impossible to demonstrate in Robert's view and most Christians conveniently ignore. Its always assumed and mainly ignored. If you think its not point out the argument(s) which demonstrates "these books" over "those books" and make sure its one that most fundibots know. Don't forget Robert said this issue was common knowledge and was settled hundreds of years ago. :notworthy:

[6] God wrote the Bible and God can't make mistakes. So even if two passages look like a plain example of an error, try real hard for Jesus to harmonize them.

Disagree. Inerrantists would say that there are no "plain examples of an error" in the first place! But there is nothing wrong with harmonising per se, even if it is for Jesus. The problem is when it is overdone.

I said "if two passaged LOOK like a plain error. Do you deny that they don't engage in rampant harmonization? I could add to the list if necessary: "Deny that there is even anything that "LOOKS" like an error in the Bible." But since your misunderstanding is cleared up I don't need to


[7] Take into account ancient written conventions. If it was the norm then to make things up and lie in written works, false statements in the Bible are not really errors since this literary practice was the norm at the time.

G Disagree. I'm not quite sure what the problem with this is. The Bible can't report lies or errors?

Thats cause you misunderstood it. It deals with the whole imprecise citation, attributing prophecy to the wrong sources and so on which is written off as "popular convention". Placing the temple at the beginning and one at the end is deemed "poetic license" in eyewitness, objective and reliable historical accounts of Jesus. etc. etc

I didn't say the Bible couldn't record lies. I also had in mind the creative activity of the evangelists (e.g. the temple placement). I admit I also had in mind that they made things up and cast them as facts. In that culture that may have been acceptable to an extent, I call it "lying" and "misrepresentation". I could care less. Of course this latter part doesn't fully apply to fundibots since they don't think anything was made up even though there own "popular convention" arguments allow them too Don't forget this is a satire as well and the former set of comments does apply!

Oh yeah, to add another GLARING example: Matthew casts Jesus going to Egypt as a prophecy and so on. These things had NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Jesus. From my article on prophecy fulfillment criteria:

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy



[8] Skeptics have the burden of proof. No errors have been demonstrated in 2,000 years. The Bible shows its divine origins by 'mediating the sacred' effectively and it purports to be a work of nonfiction. It must be granted the benefit of the doubt until shown otherwise. It is innocent until proven guilty.

A few ideas there. But problem who claim there are errors DO have the burden of proof. The Bible IS innocent until proven guilty. Disagree.

When you are ready to tackle the first installment of my formal debate with Robertlw on this then come back and see me. Errancy is by far the only rational default position for this shopping mall of books. YOu seem to have come over to accepting this position though.

[9] An incomplete report is not false. It doesn't matter how many details one author leaves out. Even if it is very unlikely that this author would have left all the details in question out, it is still technically not an error.

Disagree. I think an incomplete report is not false. I can't think of an example off hand from the Bible that covers this point.

A person on Cygnus forums also suggested this saying why is incomplete false? My response:

Who said it was? Read the rest that followed this statement:

"""It doesn't matter how many details one author leaves out. Even if it is very unlikely that this author would have left all the details in question out, it is still technically not an error. """"

We are speaking in the context of harmonizing difficulties and separate accounts. Real historians actually HAVE to explain the lack of overlap rather than just point out incomplete (meaning LACK OF OVERLAP) is not false.

To add in, I can generally point out the many incidents in rez accounts, birth narratives, Judas' death and on and on.... For a specific example: the IAM SAYINGS MATERIAL AND PRONOUNCED DIALOGUES IN JOHN. And I hope you dispute the latter so I can clean house. Why didn't any other source mention these wondrous dialogues of Jesus.....

Other sources being "Incomplete in this context" is adamantly FALSE.

I framed this in an "incomplete and lack of overlap" way with these types of things in mind.


[10] Agree.

[11] Agree (with qualification).

[12] Ignore worldview differences and that the Bible was written thousands of years ago by authors with many different beliefs and different sets of background knowledge. Read the Bible as if you would read a modern book written in our own era. God would have made sure it is adaptable and readable to all cultural situations.

Disagree. That is usually the contradictionist's position, not the inerrantists. Inerrantists generally stress that the Bible has to be read from the perspective of the culture that wrote it.

The ancient tendency was to attribute speeches with no line of transmission to their authors, to incorporate sources whole and contradict themselves at time and so forth. Fundibots deny all this.

Luke's census error is fought tooth and nail despite the fact that a simple conflation of riots explains and the fact that he did not have easy access to records like we do today and was writing about something 60 (in their view) years in the past (but its really 100 tears).

Also Raymond Brown disagrees with you: "No matter how earnestly modern Christians may affirm that they hold nothing except what is found in scripture, they are so far from the worldview of the OT and NT authors they cannot look at spiritual realities the way those authors did."

So as you say: Inerrantists can make apologetic statements and stress about the original culture all they want (like the chicago statement does), unfortunately they RARELY ever possess good critical knowledge of said culture. Academicians who study this as a lifelong process agree (see Brown). They simply assert "culture culture" which they know nothing about and try to hide behind.

Reading the Niv study notes doesn't count as "valid knowledge of that culture and the worldview of its authors".


[13] When science errors are posed, point out evolution is just a theory. Say that half a wing is no good. Point out that dinosaur and human footprints have been found together and that a young earth has now been proven by scientists.

I agree. Not sure that this really applies to inerrancy, though.

We are harmonizing a holy book. Internal and external errors have to be considered. Science presents insurmountable external errors against a literal Genesis.

[14] Ignore textual errors and the fact that God let his word be altered and corrupted through time. Despite not having any autographs or very early (50-100 years) copies of any of the works and no way of knowing what many passages originally looked like, point out that we have thousands of copies of later copies of the Bible.

Disagree. Textual errors aren't really relevent. Contradictionalists usually complain that God shouldn't allow His word to be corrupted.

You said they weren't relevant and dismissed them. How is that not "IGNORING THEM"? How is not really knowing what a lot of the texts first looked like irrelevant?

And do you deny that they run around peddling their nonsense about "we have tons of copies of later copies"????

[15] Ignore all relevant philological studies into the culture and language in question. Lacking formal expertise, simply use a lexicon casually to reinterpret anything that seems to create an incongruity in scripture. God will certainly guide you.

As in [12], inerrantists are more likely to invoke cultural aspects, though only to the degree to explain away the error, and not much further. So, neither agree nor disagree.

I've seen lots of "retranslations" to avoid errors. Have you not? Raymond Brown mentions one scholarly example in his commentary on the mode of Judas' death in Death of the Messiah." The problem is even competent scholars often engage in uncritical harmonozation when they try to retranslate errors out of a text. How much more for the fundibot going through the lexicons online with no formal training?

Vinnie

Vinnie

The love fest may resume

Vinnie

Plognark

Only another resident of Connecticut could come up with something so clever

Now if we could just get them to lower the gas prices...ouch!

Vinnie

It cost more money to drive to work than I make. I'm thinking of getting some roller skates or a bike for the summer. $20 only gets me like a half a tank now :notworthy

Go Huskies!

Vinnie

Someone pointed out a methodological rule I forgot on Christian forums:

[16] If all else fails, fall back on the "Nothing is impossible for God and we're just incapable of understanding his plan" argument

:notworthy :notworthy

I'll have to add that to the next update

Vinnie

Somone actually thinks several of these are very good princples :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

[1] Sounds great......Ill do that

[2] Scripture interprets scripture....... I can live with that.

[3] ''Behold, all souls are Mine. As the soul of the father, also the soul of the son, they are Mine. The soul that sins, it shall die''
(Eze 18:4)

[4] Logically possible solution........hmmm......works for evolution theory.....sounds great....

[6] Again.....sounds similar to what science might try to fill in the gaps....


[11] ''But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ''(1Co 2:14)

and on and on. I actually won't even bother to respond to this its so bad.

http://www.christianforums.com/t676592 (jobob post 7) :notworthy:

Steven Carr

Turkel would have to be careful.

As he says in his essay
http://www.tektonics.org/mormcont.html
'We should take caution in approaching difficulties in the Mormon texts, lest we undercut our own efforts.'

What a revealing statement!

Dargo

Nice list Vinnie. Here is something I can up with that gives summaries of common apologetic excuses. I used religion neutral language since I don't think any of these explanations for "alleged" errors or otherwise embarrassing passages are unique to Christianity.

Deity gave Holy Book to us. Deity is not a man and does not lie or make mistakes. Therefore, Holy Book is perfect.

You quoted Holy Book out of context.

You’re twisting scriptures to fit your own skewed interpretation.

If you read it in the original language, it makes sense.

That passage was allegorical. It should not be taken literally.

You have to consider the cultural and historical context of the time it was written.

That apparent mistake was a common literary practice at the time it was written.

That’s just a minor scribal error which in no way alters the overall truth of Holy Book.

You know almost nothing about Holy Book. If you carefully studied Holy Book, you would be overwhelmed by its brilliance.

Our clergy know far more about Holy Book than you do. They don’t find any errors in it. How can someone who has barely glanced at Holy Book question the wisdom of those who have dedicated their lives to studying it?

Believers are given divine guidance which allows them to understand difficult passages in Holy Book. If you were a believer, you would realize this is not an error.

If other believers have an interpretation of Holy Book that differs from mine, they are mistaken or have been misled.

Man’s intellect is far inferior to Deity’s and is sometimes unable to comprehend Deity’s perfect word.

If you search hard enough for mistakes, you can find them in anything. You are looking for trivial details in a pathetic attempt to discredit Holy Book.

Many people have attempted to find errors in Holy Book. They have all had to eventually admit failure.

That verse or passage does not mean what you think it means. It means something completely different which sounds a lot less embarrassing. This works best if you spout some excessively complicated "how it could have been" scenario in response to the "alleged" error and hope the audience is too confused to question your logic. Remember, good explanations by extremely intelligent people are often very difficult to understand. Deity is, after all, the wisest being in the universe, and most humans have great difficulty correctly interpreting his word. We should follow his example.

Speculate on the motives of those disagreeing with Holy Book rather than dealing with the substance of their arguments.

Far from being suppressive of women, Holy Book has liberated them. They had no rights before the time of our religion. Holy Book’s rules about woman are intended to protect them and to give them the dignity of Deity’s assigned place for them. Women are happiest when they are in their proper role.

There are times in Holy Book when Deity's action may seem unfair. Sometimes, he slaughters evil-doers or orders his followers to slaughter them. We sinful humans are in no position to judge him. Rest assured that Deity does nothing without good reasons even if they may not be apparent to our limited understanding. Remember, Holy Book says he is good and merciful, and Holy Book never lies.

Deity created the universe and therefore knows far more about it than lowly humans. If science disagrees with Holy Book, then science is wrong.

dado

what bible are you referring to? the editors' notes section of mine is subtitled "The Unbroken Chain of Uncertainty" and points out quite directly that a definitive text does not even exist. it also says "...the result is a bible that evolves - the changes being justified to preserve the accuracy of tradition."