Brian63

I have just been watching a video of a panel of evangelical Christians contrasting what they say about the Bible to what Muslims say about the Koran. Muslims will say that their book is perfect, without errors of any kind. Christians (at least these ones) will say that there are "variances" in the extant copies, or even inaccuracies in the original autographs, because they were worked on by mortals capable of committing errors.

Given that, what would it mean for a Christian to say the text is "divinely inspired?" How would the end result be different from a text that is not divinely inspired? It seems they are acknowledging that the god did not intervene in a way to ensure that the text was accurate from the start and copied down without errors. Does it just then mean that god intervened in the motivations of the authors (arguably violating free will), as in inspiring them to want to create a completely accurate text, even if they ended up failing at it? What specifically was done to the text and/or authors, by their god, to warrant the label "divinely inspired?"

They may point to prophecies being written and fulfilled later as instances of the god's involvement. If the god is willing to give the authors accurate knowledge and information in those instances though, why would it be unreasonable for us skeptics to ask for the same to be done throughout the entire Bible? There should be no cases where the Bible says anything that is inaccurate, exaggerated, or false. It should be remarkable in its precision throughout, as it is claimed to be in the specific verses containing specific prophecies.

If I posed the question to regular lay church-goers, I would not expect any particularly developed and thought-through answers. I am wondering though if any more senior Christian apologists and evangelical scholars address this point. I have done only light studying of apologetics regarding Christian origins, and in those cases this question has not been addressed. Is it addressed elsewhere?

Thanks,

Brian

Petergdi

It means nothing more or less than that God speaks to us through the scriptures.

The people who wrote it, wrote it in obedience to God, and no one obeys God except by the Holy Spirit.

I don't suppose that this is limited in any way to the canon of scripture. The point of the canon is to indicate agreement that these books are to be received as a way that God speaks to us, not to say that God is limited in any way by the canon.

I'm a regular lay church-goer and I expect my answers would not be atypical.

Peter.

mountainman

The process is called "canonisation" whereby a series of writings is rasied to the status of a "Holy Writ". On the surface, the process of "canonisation" appears to have been achieved by a "consensus of opinion" however beneath this juvenile political surface, the major "Holy Writs" of the worlds religions (such as Islam and Christianity) were supported by supreme military supremacists who sought to enforce a religious orthodoxy by which they could then rule the eternal souls of their tax paying citizens.

Those who perceive "knowledge" to be supremely resident within a "Canonised Holy Writ" have said to themselves that knowledge is external to themselves, and relegate themselves to following the authority of those who profess to explicate the "Holy Writ" to their respective flocks. I do not see Buddhism, for example, in this category, although some people will want to pay great respect to the "document and manuscript tradition" associated with the history of Buddhism. Here is a brief schematic depicting the differences between "innate knowledge or gnosis", the "oral tradition", the "manuscript tradition" and the elevation of special manuscripts to the status of "Holy Writ".

Brian63

Thanks for the responses. I am still unclear about whether there is any observable difference in the final products between a book that is "divinely inspired" and one that is not.

Another way to look at it:



Suppose that you are given 2 books and told that 1 of them is "divinely inspired" while the other is not, and you are asked to identify which one is which. How could you tell? What would you look for? What differences would there be in the end result between a book that is and is not divinely inspired?



Suppose you later discover that Book A is perfect, in that it is free of all errors of fact, free of linguistic typos, contains perfect grammar throughout, etc. You also discover that Book B does have some typos, some imprecise language, some slight misstatements of fact, etc. Would this new knowledge affect which book you consider to be divinely inspired and which one is not?

If not, how else would you look at a book and determine that it is divinely inspired? Is that possible to tell at all, or is it something that would have no discernible effect on the text?

Brian

Hawkins

Divinely inspired means God allows people to write in accordance to God's will. This can be achieved by the use of more than one writers to write consistently. Actually perhaps more writers are preferred because one can hardly maintain a consistent status to be close with God (sinners cannot be close to God all the times).

Moreover, Bible is also written by the method of witnessing. And only one saying from one person cannot be considered as witnessing. That's why alot of writters are involving writing consistently. And Jesus doesn't write anything by Himself, His witnesses did.

Brian63

What if there are inconsistencies? In the panel of Christians I mentioned in the OP, and in other apologetics I have encountered, the usual retort is to admit that there are inconsistencies between the texts, but they are insignificant and on secondary issues that do not affect any doctrines. They do not say there are no inconsistencies though.

Furthermore, they will say that the inconsistencies actually lend credibility to the gospels, because if they were perfectly consistent with each other it would raise suspicions that the authors were collaborating with each other to create a unified story. The fact that there are inconsistencies shows that they were operating independently as historical witnesses. Eyewitness descriptions of events usually will have inconsistencies around the edges and the details, but will agree on some "core" story that we can then conclude is true.

So if you saw 1 book that had zero inconsistencies and another book that had some, would you conclude that the latter is more likely than the former to be the one that is "divinely inspired?" Are inconsistencies what we should expect to see in the final product of a book that is divinely inspired?

Brian

Gawen

Excellent question Brian. So far the respondents have not answered the question. They CAN'T answer the question without using one simple word...'subjective'.

Looking at it another way, suppose a Professor of theology was given just a sheet of paper with one paragraph on it. He's told the words on it are divinely inspired. How can he tell? He can't. It doesn't matter how many sheets of paper he gets...all of them with minor to major variances. He can't tell which or all are divinely inspired without being totally subjective.

It's like asking a person to read a poem. Then trot out 10 people before him and asked to pick which person wrote the poem...but the person who wrote it isn't in the lineup.

Brian63

I just sent an email to the church where this panel discussion was held, asking the same questions and inviting them to this thread. It is a long shot, but still worth the shot.

Brian

ETA: For posterity's sake, this is the First Family Church in Overland Park, Kansas. In April, they hosted a debate between Bart Ehrman and Craig Evans in which Ehrman gave a very strong performance and Evans was rather dismal, and then a few days later held a panel discussion with a few conservative evangelicals (including Evans again) to "debunk" Ehrman's claims.

Brian63

It could also be replied to that there may be slight inaccuracies about some historical facts, but the evidence of "divine inspiration" can be found in the moral and spiritual truths expressed in the Bible.

Other books can and do contain moral and spiritual truths as well, but are not argued to be divinely inspired by anyone in quite the same way. Whether a piece of text does contain moral and spiritual truths is also a very subjective evaluation. A person may find some other book to be even more insightful than the Bible, but it would not make sense for that person to then conclude that their other book is divinely inspired. It just means the book is more insightful, similar to how we consider some works of literature to be more insightful than others.

Brian

Petergdi

I think it was William Tyndale who observed that reading the bible regularly would either make a person better and better or make him worse and worse - what it doesn't do is leave him alone. Maybe this is subjective, but it seems to be true nonetheless.

Peter.