pinkvoy

what do you know about carm.org?

for copyright I'll not reproduce entire passage but

http://carm.org/redaction-criticism

Some Evidence and Answers for Redaction

Some evidence offered to support biblical redaction is that the ending of Deuteronomy (Chapter 34) records Moses' death though it was not Moses who wrote it; the arrangement of the Psalms into five sections is the work of a compiler; and that the Book of Chronicles states it is based on prior writings (1 Chron. 9:1; 27:24; 29:29; 2 Chron. 9:29; 13:22; 6:11; 20:34; 25:26; 27:7; 28:26; 32:32; 33:19; 35:27; 36:8).3 There are other alleged evidences, but these will suffice.

Though there are accounts of biblical writers arranging or commenting on events, this does not discount the authenticity or reliability of the biblical documents. It is commonly accepted in conservative scholarly circles that Joshua probably wrote the ending of Deuteronomy. This does not invalidate the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Likewise, simply arranging material, such as the Psalms, into categories does not affect its inspiration, authenticity, or reliability at all. And, citing other sources for factual reference likewise, in no way reduces the inspiration of the book of Chronicles, or the Bible as a whole. The inspired writer simply used other books, which were not inspired though accurate, in his compilation of the biblical record.

Though it is not within the scope of this paper, redaction criticism is refuted by the evidence of the reliability of the historic documents (dealt with in Textual Criticism), the fact that the prophecies were indeed made and fulfilled, and that the Bible is archaeologically accurate. Due to the science of Textual Criticism, the original texts of the Bible can be reconstructed with a great deal of accuracy, their prophetic nature verified, and their inspiration maintained.

show_no_mercy

What else is there to say that hasn't already been said? A belief in "biblical inerrancy" is a childish concept. To paraphrase R. Joseph Hoffman, to be an inerrantist you have to forget that the book that is supposedly "inerrant" has a history.

Another odd thing I see is that it's mainly Christians who argue for biblical inerrancy. They already don't understand the so-called "Old" Testament yet they claim that their misunderstanding is "inerrant". The only way to conclude that Jesus was "predicted" in the Tanakh is by fundamentally misconstruing the Tanakh. In other words, the bible is "inerrant" as long as it points towards Jesus.

I can't see how starting with your conclusion and then working backwards could ever be identified with "inerrancy".

Atheos

It's understandable that there is a large and powerful core of believers who are unwilling to cede strongly felt beliefs about the authorship of various books in the bible. For the most part these claims are made based on no actual evidence, merely appeal to someone they want to believe knew what they were talking about.

If you look at each book with even the slightest objectivity you begin to understand that certain books belie tremendous evidence of redaction, external and internal. External evidence, primarily textual criticism, provides us with many variant readings, periscopes, etc., that often provide all the evidence one should need to conclude that a significant amount of redaction took place. Internal evidence does so as well. Competing (and sometimes contradictory) versions of the "Garden of Eden" creation myth as well as the Flood myth are obvious to all but the most apologetic readers.

There will always be a market for authoritative sounding people to tell others the very things they want to hear.

Minimalist

CARM stands for Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.

Why on earth would you put credence into anything they say?

dockeen

They also have a serious weed up their ass towards universalists - those dudes LOVE
their hell.

pinkvoy

Christians like them recommended I read Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind (or via: amazon.co.uk). Bloom thinks the Bible is an essential part of a Great Books education.

dockeen

I am sure many here would agree with that, but for somewhat varying
reasons.

judge

I have posted (though not for little while) over there under the name "magikrooster", usually in the preterist forum.
For myself , pretersim, eventually leads one out of christianity, even though one could still making the NT all about events leading up to the jewsih war 66-70 AD leads inescapably to universalism, and then to the uselessness of being a christian (even if you do believe the NT). This is not to say that community can't be very positive thing.
Thats not to say that would mean there is nothing valuable in there, but why look to ancient texts for this?

Ironically too, the message I see there is that according to the NT , one should not become a christian.

But one cant just come straight out and say that, all in one go.

Doug Shaver

I've commented on some of their work on my Web site: http://dougshaver.com/christ/bible/contradictions.html.