Late_Cretaceous

I don't come into this room too often, so excuse me since I am sure this has been hashed over a hundred times here already.

Fundies often claim that the Bible is inerrant and a product of devine inspiration.

Says who exactly? God? Jesus?
Whoever made that claim?
And why should the(favortite biblical translation here) be any better then the others? SInce there are striking differences between different translations.
WHy isnt the Book of Mormon perfect, or the Gnostic Gospels, or the Koran for that matter?

Jayman

As a Christian, I don't think there's anything in the Bible that makes a strong case for inerrancy. The "proof text" is supposed to be 2 Tim. 3:16, but that only says that all scripture is God-breathed. Adam had the breath of God in him and that didn't mean he was perfect. Furthermore, since the NT didn't exist as a canon at the time 2 Tim. was written, "all scripture" can only refer to the OT.

Dr S

The Bible is inerrant because unlike every other book it's words aren't hindered by pesky definitions.
Like in Gen I it says that god made the world in six days. What that means is six 24 hour days, six thousand years, six million years or six geologic ages.
Adam is told by god that he will die that very day. He goes on to live for almost a thousand years. That's because when god said die he was really thinking about something else.
When the bible says that the sun orbits a flat Earth it really is predicting NASA space probes.

As far as I can tell the way it works is you pick a passage at random and read it aloud with great verve. Then you claim it means anything you happen to feel like at the moment.
'Blessed are the poor of spirit 'was Jesus' way of saying "more beer for everyone!!"
And who can doubt that Jesus wanted us all to kick back a cold one--it's what the bible means and the Bible is inerrant.

Mark_Chid

What does "all scripture" mean anyway? Why was the apocrypha rejected? What about the Book of Mormon or the Koran? Why are they NOT scripture? Who decides and what gives them the right to decide?

And anyway isn't it circular reasoning? What support is there for the inerrancy of 2 Tim. 3:16 apart from what the epistle itself contains? Surely you can't use an assurance of inerrancy WITHIN a letter as evidence that that letter is inerrant? Thats pitifully weak reasoning!

CX

Biblical inerrancy is a non-rational position mostly embraced by people who are not properly educated with respect to the bible. Most of the intelligent theists I know do not hold to a doctrine of inerrancy. Even the smallest amount of research demonstrates that the bible is, in fact, not inerrant as it is now (If it once was as some Xians assert it makes no difference since the text we have now is not)

Biblical inerrancy is largely a relatively recent product of the protestant fundamentalist sects. Certainly the bible makes no claims to it's own perfection (2 Tim notwithstanding). I've read the entire NT in English and a majority of the Greek critical text and I have never found anything that claims inerrancy. But in principle such a claim could never be corroborated since it would rely on circular reasoning. After one has spent any amount of time studying the texts of the Canon such discussions lose any interest.

If you are curious about such things I'd recommend reading a good intro text (Like Udo Schnelle's or Raymond Brown's) and something on the history of the Canon (there are a number of good articles in the SecWeb library). Not that it is likely to be useful since it will only confirm what you already know and no arguement you discover will be sufficient to vanquish the inerrantist's invincible ignorance. Nonetheless it is a fascinating subject and should be personally edifying.

Jayman

We can't know exactly what the author of 2 Timothy meant when he referred to "all scripture" but it's reasonable to conclude that it contained most of what we consider the Old Testament because the author was writing pseudonymously under the name of Paul, a Jew. Perhaps some apocrypha was meant to be included in the phrase "all scripture", but we don't know which ones. The other books you include would not be considered "all scripture", in this case, because (1) they were written after 2 Timothy and (2) because they are written from a Christian perspective which would not include texts outside of the Judeo-Christian literature.

First, I'm not supporting inerrancy. Second, I was answering the question posed in the original post of this thread: whoever made that claim?

Ron Garrett

Modern fundamentlists are for the most part satisfied with the <a href="http://instructor.pbi.ab.ca/coreyliknes/TH342/Readings/Chicago%20Statment.htm" target="_blank">Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy</a>.

This reflects the thinking of the Protestant Reformation where the distinction between the then common notion of passive inspiration and direct revelation were lost. A belief in the Holy Ghost providing immediate and independent revelation to the individual believer via the text, and that the reading of the Bible was equivalent to God speaking directly to an OT prophet provoked Bibliolatry. Nowhere does the scripture guarantee its own correct transmission.

Of course if you yield to the possibility of erro in any of the books you yield entirely, for once questioning is allowed in any form we will proceed through the Bible from asinine notion to asinine notion and declare it an error of some sort, and then, heaven forfend, true believers might doubt the notion of talking jackasses, walking dead men and demon infested pigs, and there goes civilization.

GeoTheo

I don't agree that the Bible needs to be inerrant in order to communicate truth. If someone is trying to teach a moral lesson by telling a story the story can get the point across with out every last detail having to be 100 percent factually accurate. I even think the inconsistencies found in the gospels add credence to them. People see the same thing and give conflicting accounts all the time. If two people view an accident and give slightly conflicting accounts the logical conclusion is not that there must not have been a car accident.
Besides this, the Bible is not really a work of Christian apologetics. It assumes the truth of it's claims. It is written to an already sympathetic audience. For example no space is wasted on proving the existence of God.