Johnny Skeptic

Message to Gundulf: In order to simplify our discussions, please tell us why you believe that except for scribal and copyist errors, the copies faithfully represent the originals? Has God ever stated that that was his intention?

Gundulf

I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just don't know exactly what you're getting at. There are entire schools of textual criticism, because the assumption is that in ANY documents of antiquity, that it is possible to know the originals in a significant sense by sifting through the scribal and copyist errors.

I generally believe that except for scribal and copyist errors, that the copies we have of the Scripture faithfully represent the originals. I also believe the same thing about the writings of Shakespeare, The Iliad and the Odyssey, The Qu'ran, the History of Heroditus.....


To answer your question, I think that, (along with, I believe, most scholars who study any and all works of antiquity) apart from scribal and copyist errors, there would have had to have been a vast conspiracy at some point between the writing of the 'original' and what we currently have available in order to cause there to be a significant difference between the original writing and the copies we have today. Somehow, some person/group would have had to successfully re-write the document in question, convince all the scholars of their day that their re-write was in fact the original, and successfully destroy any manuscripts that retained the language of the original document in question.

In order to suggest that what we have does NOT represent the original (minus the scribal errors), you must suggest that, somehow, some major (intentional?) change was introduced, and managed to make it into ALL the various families of these documents that had been spread throughout the world. This is highly unlikely. Particularly in that the earliest copies of the Bible date to much closer to their respective originals than do about any other writing of antiquity.

Cege

[QUOTE=Mike PSS;4577633]The disclaimer about Jesus/Joseph is only to indicate that Jesus was thought by his contemporaries to be the actual son of Joseph at the time Jesus was born, but the gospel writer goes on throughout the book to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit 'fathered' Jesus rather than Joseph having done so. It's not a disclaimer that in any way indicates the writer thought Adam might be a fictional character in an ancient metaphorical story.

I believe that Adam is a fictional character in a metaphorical story, but I don't see any indication that NT writers thought so.

Johnny Skeptic

What about the issue of innocent but inaccurate revelations, which you surely will agree is common in most religious texts? Why should anyone exclude a reasonable possibility that some writings in the Bible are the result of innocent but inaccurate revelations? One possibility of an innocent but inaccurate revelation/revision is the Tyre prophecy. Consider the following Scriptures:

Ezekiel 26:1 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:

7 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

8 He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.

9 And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.

10 By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.

11 With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.

Johnny: Please note that Ezekiel referred to Nebuchadnezzar as a "king of kings," and that his army would "tread down all" of the streets of the mainland settlement, and yet after about 15 years Nebuchadnezzar gave up and went home. At that point, I believe that it is reasonably possible that as the result of an innocent but inaccurate revelation, Ezekiel, or someone else, added Ezekiel 26:3, which says "Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up." Will you agree with me that without verse 3, the case for the Tyre prophecy is not nearly as good as it is with verse 3?

I know that my comments do not directly apply to inerrancy, so if you wish, I will start a new thread where we can discuss innocent but inaccurate revelations, or, if that topic is better suited for the GRD Forum, we can discuss this issue there.

Do you intend to reply to my most recent posts in my thread on fairness at the GRD Forum?

Gundulf

We need to be clear on the terms, the way I use them, I'm not following what an innocent but inaccurate revelation is. The way I use the term 'revelation' - I generally mean a communication of truth from God. If it is true, and from an omniscient God, then it will be accurate.

I grant the hypothetically possibility that an untrustworthy God could give an inaccurate revelation, but this wouldn't be 'innocent'.

How exactly are you using the term 'revelation' here? It seems as you mean something different than I use the term. Also, could you dumb it down for me, Barney-style, and explain exactly what an 'innocent but inaccurate revelation' is?

Steviepinhead

Whatever one might say of the accuracy of a revelation--hypothetically--transmitted by God, isn't it always possible--when examining the other end of the transmission-reception hook-up, that the receiver is faulty: they innocently and honestly believed that the revelation originated with God, but in fact it originated elsewhere--hallucination or other mental aberration, wishful thinking, dream.

If such a person, living in a community of revelation-believers like the early Jews--or the early Jewish priesthood, or whatever we think the appropriate OT-scribing community to have been--were to announce a revelation that apparently included all the "normal" indicia of "valid" revelations, including the revelation-recipient's own subjective--but mistaken--belief in the Godly-origin (and perhaps even the recipient's identity as someone who had actually received valid revelations on prior occasions), then how would the community determine that this particular revelation was not valid and should not be included in scripture?

While I'm sure that you're confident, from the standpoint of your faith, that God somehow supervised the process so that only valid revelations were included, from the standpoint of someone who lacks that confidence--a lack of confidence that you presumably share as to the revelations that inspired the scriptures underlying all other religions--it's unclear just how one goes about discerning a valid revelation from an invalid-but-earnestly-believed-to-be-valid one.

I'm trying not to complicate matters by stepping even further from valid revelation (viz.--various species of subjectively "self-interested" or "managed" or "fraudulent" revelations, of the kind that we so often see emanating from televangelists and the like...).

That's my take on what an "innocent but inaccurate" revelation is.

Gundulf

Well, then it isn't a revelation - it is a belief that something was revelation when it was an underdone turnip. But it isn't revelation - innocent or not. Revelation is revelation only if (in this context) if it was, in fact, revealed by God. If not truly revealed by God, it isn't revelation, so this is a bit irrelevenet to my concept of revelation.

mung bean

Err Gundulf, methinks you are dodging the question a little. Maybe not intentionally but still, the point was how on earth does anyone know what is true revelation and what isn't?
What criteria are used to distinguish between true and false revelations?

Johnny Skeptic

I am not talking about an untrustworthy God giving Bible writers inaccurate revelations. What I am talking about is the possibility that Bible writers, on their own, without any influence from God, innocently wrote what they thought was from God, but wasn't from God.

For example, regarding homosexuality, I believe that there is a reasonable possibility that the writers were speaking for themselves and not for God, but believed that they were speaking for God. Surely you do not believe that all non-Christian religious texts are deliberate lies.

In your opinion, does inerrancy operate under the presumption that God would not allow non-inspired writings to be in the Bible?

Gundulf

Well, of COURSE people could have been deluded, and think God was speaking to them when it was only an underdone radish or a bad acid trip.

So yes, if inerrancy is true, then it implies that God would have assured not simply that what he said was trustworthy, but that he also guarded his revelation against corruption from things that were not inerrant.

I would of course concur - IF it were the case that God inspired SOME of the Bible - even most of it; but some of it was stuck in by people who were deluded, and we have no way of judging between one or the other.... then yes; 'THE BIBLE' could not possibly be inerrant.

Inerrancy does depend not only on God inspiring the texts to start with, but also depends on him filtering out anything that isn't inspired by him. Quite correct. Now I see what you're getting at.l