KnightWhoSaysNi

The purpose of this thread is to provide a Peanut Gallery for a FORMAL DEBATE between Vinnie and RobertLW on the following resolution:

Resolved: the Bible is not inerrant and it contains clear examples of errors and contradictions.

Vinnie will go first, taking the affirmative, and RobertLW will oppose.

We ask that the formal debate participants refrain from posting in the Peanut Gallery until after the debate is over.

Keep in mind that there will always be a link to the Peanut Gallery in the first post of the formal debate thread in case you cannot find the gallery later.

Enjoy the debate!

Jason

luvluv

Excellent first post by Vinnie. Surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with much of what he says.

However, I wonder if he might be overstating his case a bit. The instance of Jesus, in one debate with the Pharisees, making ageneral statement about the spiritual importance of food laws does not, in my view, constitute any formal "repeal of the food laws."

Indeed, if it is true that Jesus was generally observant of food laws (as Vinnie claims) then we could say that Jesus was simply following Paul's later dictum: he was avoiding unnecessarily antagonizing his enemies by submitting to food laws, even though he thought they were non-binding. It is quite possible that Jesus made a statement like the statement mentioned in Mark, and yet never himself partook of any non-kosher foods. If so, it is completely reasonable to me that the apostles never really understood this statement as being a formal repeal of all food laws, but simply the prioritizing of them. It may have been their impression that Jesus was simply saying that food laws aren't as important as spiritual laws, not that all food laws had been officially repealled.

I'm not arguing for inerrancy here, I'm just saying that I don't see the problem with this partiuclar passage.

Doctor X

Well . . . as the king looks sadly on the young-eager squire trying to joust the Black Knight--knowing full well the difference between reality and fairy tale--I give credit to RobertLW for taking up the challenge.

Granted, I do not think he has a chance . . . but you have to admire courage!

--J.D.

graymouser

luvluv:

As part of the Mosaic ceremonial law, the food laws were concerned with ritual cleanliness. Jesus specifically states in the quoted passages that nothing from without could make one unclean, which is entirely contrary to large, large sections of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Vinnie's objections are quite thorough about this - if Jesus said what Mark has him say, then he has annihilated large sections of the Law...which contains quite a few jots and tittles.

-Wayne

luvluv

graymouser:

I'm just saying, it seems excessive to expect Jesus's disciples to interpret this statement as saying:

"All Food Laws Have Now Been Repealed!

- Jesus Christ, son of God, 1st class."

What he said was it is what comes out of the mouth that makes people unclean, not what goes into the mouth. I'm sure that statement, along with many other statements made by Jesus, did anger the Jewish establishment. But I don't think this one statement clearly abolishes all food laws.

Perhaps Vinnie will amplify this point in his subsequent responses, but as it stands it seems to be making a mountain out of a mole-hill.

funinspace

I find any spitting of hairs regarding the "food law" a minor point.

Matthew 5:17-19 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any
means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,"

Yes, I know the word ended in 70AD, and most of us just forgot to get off. Mt 5:17-19 has to be so contorted to make it not conflict with the rest of the NT, that I have to wonder if words have any meaning at that point. So Paul must be one of the least as well for he forsook the Law. Sounds like a duck, walks like a duck....

DK

Celsus

Vinnie's off to a good start, but it could be better. I know he's an NT guy, but I think the easiest and most irreconcilable problems are to be found in the Hebrew Bible because there we have tons (literally) of evidence to compare with many claims, whereas in the NT, you can only compare texts with each other, or come up with minor anachronisms (Acts 5:37 or the Lucan census, for example). The harmonisation defense is much easier for the opponent. If, for example, Vinnie were to compare the exodus myth with findings at Kadesh Barnea and elsewhere in the Sinai desert, or the conquest narratives with regional surveys of Israelite towns, he'd already have won the debate. No apologist can "harmonise" such things without stretching the realms of credulity (Glen Miller's attempts to harmonise the conquest are perhaps the most cringe-worthy I've seen). I think he should have limited it to external errors simply because then one need not argue over the Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, nor does the debate reduce to semantics easily.

I'm not sure what parameters were finally agreed upon, but any mention of numbers in the Hebrew Bible is another sure winner--for example 600,000 men leaving Egypt, invading a Canaan with a population (from archaeological evidence) of 50,000 men, women, and children, then the opponent must immediately concede defeat (and after "defeating" our Canaanite friends, they left a population of about 150,000 at the height of the Israel's power, not really good statistics against the pesky Canaanites). Or the time periods in Judges against the 480 years from Egypt to Solomon's Temple as Kings proclaims. Or the various numbers which differ in Kings and Chronicles. Hopefully, Robert has inserted a "scribal/copyist errors" clause into the inerrancy notion, otherwise he's already lost.

Joel

Cross Examiner

A quick thought. It seems to me that Vinnie violates the law of excluded middle by presuming that errancy or inerrancy are the only two possible default stances. He does make the case that inerrancy should not be default but does not make the case that agnosticism should not be default and so his presumption of errancy as default is unfounded as far as I can tell.

Regards,
BGic

Steven Carr

As virtually all books are errant, and Christians concede themselves that there are scribal errors, errancy must be the default position.

Clutch

First thing, I think you mean to raise the worry that Vinnie has inappropriately applied the LEM -- that is, committed the fallacy of false dichotomy or false dilemma or bifurcation. (So many names, it must be popular!)

Second thing, he hasn't. Maybe a transcendental or purely principled argument could impugn inerrancy without warranting errancy. But any argument against inerrancy based on counterexamples is ipso facto an argument for errancy. So if that's Vinnie's argument -- and it is -- there is no fallacy of false dichotomy.