Don McIntosh

[QUOTE]If the Bible contains numerous genuine errors or contradictions, then it is no longer plausible that an all-wise God is behind it.

lpetrich

And the same can be said of other sacred books -- that they also are unique in some way. Why is the Bible anything special here?

leonarde

Partial post by Vibr8Kiwi: Well, in a sense yes. But that is
really putting the cart before the horse. To wit:

1)God communicated directly or semi-directly to
a number of personages throughout one to two millenia (semi-directly would be through an angel, burning bush etc.).

2)These interpersonal communications----unwritten
about at the time----were to widely disparate personages who include: Abraham, Moses, several prophets etc. The "record" of these revelations was an oral one.

3)MUCH MUCH later, in some cases centuries, these
events were written about by persons, persons deemed at the time their writings became orthodoxy
"inspired by God".

4)Because of the time lag, the (in our view)lax
historical-writing standards of the time, and the
metaphysical and moral orientation of the writings
they have some inconsistencies, gaps, redundancies
and contradicions.

5)#4) is due to their HUMAN authors: "inspiration"
doesn't mean infallibility. God wasn't dictating the words used.

6)The time-lag on the New Testament books is much
less (say 60 to 200 years as a range). Therefore
the problems of #4 are much less severe: we can
reasonably place chronologically and geographically the events described.

7)The NT documents are centered on a new
revelation and covenant by God: the longest and
most personal revelation of the Divine Person
yet.

I don't know what
"attributes" YOU are looking for. I think many of
those books are extraordinary. But I'm not a "Bible thumper" and I don't expect: "infallibility", "Bible formulae", "Bible codes",
smack-people-in-the-face-with-extraordinariness
qualities. The forgoing are things which certain
evangelicals and/or fundamentalists see, look for,
expound upon. One of my discoveries of the last
several months is that these evangelicals/funda-
mentalists have their own odd doppelgaengers in
the non-theist camp.

Cheers!

Ion

and
I agree.

Leonarde, what are you saying about it?

Judas and other Biblical characters, are non-existent outside of the Bible, and the Bible is filled with incoherent extraordinary claims, so the Bible is unreliable.

Jack the Bodiless

False. If Mr Vanderzyden really had all that training that he claims to be necessary for these discussions, he would know that the Bible does NOT stand unique.

Care to expalin WHY the Bible stands unique? No, of course not. This is another assertion that you cannot support, and you know it. You're bluffing.
Pot, kettle, black (I've lost count of the number of times this metaphor has been directed at you lately).

When will YOU address the issues raised in this thread? Or will you post nothing but diversions?

Nialler

Surely we need go nu further than this quote from the opening post:

"We must take note that the book of Acts is written by "Luke", friend of Theophilus. He is the most historically meticulous of the NT writers."

i.e. the other NT writers were *less* "meticulous".

Borrowing from OUP: meticulous in the modern usage means: "careful, punctilious, scrupulous, precise".

i.e., using the distributive function, the other NT writers were less careful, less punctilious, less scrupulous, less precise.

The act of writing about events in a meticulous manner is not easily amenable to a rating in a comparative manner; however, an attempt might be made to do so by assessing the overall veracity of the facts contained in a piece of writing. Thus, if writer "A" has written a piece which can be held to be 98% true, then it might be true to say that he has proven himself to be more meticulous than writer "B", who managed to get 96% of his facts right.

Be that as it may, the bald statement that one of the four evangelists was more "meticulous" than the others is the cleasrest possible indication that the writings of the other three must contain errors. These could be either of:

1) Differences between the separate accounts of specific incidents reported by more than one writer,

or,

2) Incorrect accounts of incidents which are uniquely reported by that writer.

In the case of the first option, Van's characterisation of one of the writers as being more meticulous has been accompanied by an example (the death of Judas and the purchase/naming of the field). It is also possible to deduce from his staement that option 2 is correct, viz., some details that are reported in only one Gospel are possibly reported incorrectly. Of course, since there is only report we have no way of cross-checking; the likelihood of some of these accounts being in error, however, flows from your assertion about the less meticulous nature of the other evangelists. It is statistically unlikely that their mistakes would be confined purely to the incidents common to all four Gospels.

I thank you, Van, for your concession that not only are there contradictions in the NT, but that there are also mistakes of which we are unaware for want of a second account.

leonarde

Partial post by Nialler: Not necessarily.

Consider 2 accounts of a bank robbery:

1)It was sometime between 10 and 11 in the morning....
2)It was 10:32 in the morning as I had just looked
at my watch....

1)A car drove up to the curb in front of the bank.
2)A green Mustang of 1975 vintage drove up to
the front of the bank.

1)Somebody got out.
2)Two men, both Caucasian of medium height, and
both in their 20s got out.

1)They seem to be carrying something.
2) Each man apparently had a sawed-off shotgun
wrapped in paper.
Etc.

Speaker #1 is telling the same basic story as speaker #2. But the latter has more details. If most of the details prove out we would say that
speaker #2 is more meticulous in his observations/
account of the incident.
That, in and of itself, doesn't mean that there are any "errors" in speaker #2's [edit: I meant speaker #1's] account.

Cheers!

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

Nialler

Lenoarde,

I will repeat the OUP definition of "meticulous":

"careful, punctilious, scrupulous, precise"

Precise. "Somebody" is not a precise description. It is "vague", so ,yes, the writer of the vague piece could be considered less meticulous than the other. But what about "careful, punctilious, scrupulous"?

If Van meant that the other writers were more vague than Luke, then why not say so? No, I have to use the word he used and conclude that the other evangelists were less careful etc etc.

But let's talk cases here. The example given by Van contains four clear contradictions between the two accounts that are referenced. Van also refers to one of the writers as being more meticulous than others. Voila! The reason why oe of the accounts is flawed!

Unlike your flawed example, the example he used does not rely on omissions in order for the contradictions. The statements in each account are directly in contradiction to each other.

leonarde

Posted by Nialler: That's right and that was my whole point: account #2 is more:
precise
meticulous
descriptive
scrupulous (ie account #1 is more like the other 3 Gospels if we are trying to follow Vanderzyden's
train of thought).

So it is analogous to what Vanderzyden is saying
about Luke. But that does not mean (again
necessarily) that:

account #1 (here being analogized to Matthew, Mark
and John)is in error.

"Meticulous" really is an orientation, an attitude. Meticulous people make errors but they
are more likely to notice those errors (and where
possible) correct them.

Cheers!

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

Ion

Leonarde,
you are ducking this post:

and
I agree.

Leonarde, what are you saying about it?

Judas and other Biblical characters, are non-existent outside of the Bible, and the Bible is filled with incoherent extraordinary claims, so the Bible is unreliable.