Doug Shaver

Yep. Bible = God.

Like I've often said, inerrantists don't worship any god. They worship a book.

Steven Avery

Hi Doug,

Same fundamental error as Chris yesterday,
although his error had a more limited attempted appilcation.

You can speak a falsehood every day,
and it will be a falsehood each and every day.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Ben C Smith

I guess I am wondering how you keep away from a philosophy of personal revelation. On whose authority do you accept the Bible? If it is the authority of God, on whose authority do you accept the fact that God has authorized the Bible? If it is on the authority of man, on whose authority do you accept their authorization?

Where does the trail of authority stop if not within your own judgment at some point?

Ben.

spamandham

Referring to a book as the work of a god, and honoring it as such, is not worship? Why not?

Steven Avery

Oh, one might say there is a smidgen of circularity in any faith revelation. Or that nothing can be proven 'objectively' to those who embrace paradigms of skepticism.

The basic issue is whether God has placed His word in writing, scripture.

We agree (I think) that, if not .. all is personal revelation.

Now if He has so placed His word .. there are two possibilities.

1) It is errant, corrupted, confused or whatever. In which case you are essentially back to personal revelation, partying, debauchery, weeping, whatever. Or going as supplicants to a priesthood who will try to either patchquilt the word by their great knowledge .. or subordinate it to tradition.

2) Or God's word is pure and perfect. And the issue is simply "The Search for the Word of God" (the name of a book by Daniel Segraves that was one of the first I read on the issue).

(2) is the one that rings with consistency and truth and clarity and perfection.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Yellum Notnef

Do you not see the tremendous irony in you making such a statement?

Wow.

Equinox

John wrote:
Though I agree with Diogenes (that when in conversation we should only assume that which is uncontroversial - such as the idea that Paul wrote the 7 Pauline epistles, and be explicit on other claims) - That really wasn't my point.

My point was that even if one ascribes the deuteropaulines to Paul, one shouldn't use acts as a source of Pauline quotes without at least mentioning the very large assumption being made. After all, Acts doesn't claim to be by Paul, and contradicts Paul's own descriptions of Paul's actions in a number of places. As such - in addition to the fact that Acts/luke has other instances of incorrect history, one looks simply uninformed to be using something in Acts as evidence about the historical Paul.

On the other topic of the thread, I still find it amazing that anyone would blame God for the Bible we have today. In addition to mountains of contradictions, absurdities, and evil morality, one even has to specify which Bible is the sole one God is preserving - is that the Catholic Bible, with 73 books, or the KJV (which is well known to be poorly preserved), or the NIV, which KJV onlyists say is completely corrupted, or the Coptic Bible, or what?

Sounds like a whole new thread to me, it's off-topic.

Have a fun day all-

-Equinox

Steven Avery

So many errors, so little time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Equinox or the NIV, which KJV onlyists say is completely corrupted

Very corrupt.
Not "completely corrupted" whatever that would mean.

Others here with no KJB orientation have commented on the NIV problems and corruptions.

In fact the NIV was the main Bible version I knew for many years, and was ok for a season, till I learned a bit more and put down mistaken versions.

Shalom,
Steven

Ben C Smith

Placing these several and sometimes competing options (personal revelation, an oracle or priest who acts as a divine channel, and the transmission of a divine tradition through approved tradents) under one umbrella seems like a headlong rush to get to your preferred option.

Well, not for me, I must confess. And it still took something either very personal or very traditional to get you to option 2, since either you had to decide for yourself or somebody else had to decide for you which set of books the word of God was and, in this case, which books were to be included in the approved set.

Let me just cut through the thicket here. I think that all authoritative claims based on the Bible conceal behind them an appeal to tradition (the Bible did not fall from the sky; it was transmitted), and all authoritative claims to tradition conceal behind them an appeal to personal judgment (each person has to decide which tradition to follow, if any).

Ben.

Cege

From reading the NT and studying about Paul, it seems to me that a philosophy of personal revelation about the meaning of the life and death of Jesus is exactly what Paul taught and preached.