Babylon Sister

If, as you assert, the bible is inerrant and infallable, why does it need to be intrepreted at all, let alone properly? What's "properly"? Who gets to decide? You? Me? A commitiee? Christians only? Which Christians, what sect? My cat Spunky?

Shouldn't your infallable God have been able to make his inerrant, infallable word so very clear that it didn't need intrepretation?

Or does it only need intrepretation when it doesn't fit or support the agenda de jour ?

anime

"Inerrant" and "infallable" do not = "unsophisticated".

Babylon Sister

"inerrant" and "infallable" apparently don't mean "inerrant" and "infallable" either.

anime

:boohoo:

Christian

Babylon Sister,

It's an inherent property of using words to communicate. "I went to Paris last week" might be a completely true statement. However if you don't bother to find out whether the speaker is refering to Paris Texas or to Paris France you then you might reach a wrong understanding of that statement. Your wrong understanding would not be based on any falsehood in the statement, but on failing to accurately grasp what the speaker meant.

Just because a set of words are inerrant and infallable does not mean that they are no longer words at all. Any time that a set of words (infallable or otherwise) is mentally processed by a hearer "interpretation" occurs. The only way that words could exist without interpretation is if they were never read or heard. The second they are communication to someone "interpretation" happens whether you want it to or not.

Good interpretation is when the concept you understand is the concept that the author or speaker intended. Poor interpretation is when the concept you understand is different than the concept the author of speaker intended. No interpretation only exists when no communication has occured.

Interpretation is simply a consequence of dealing with words.

What exactly equates to communication without any interpretation in your mind? Are you looking for the words to jump up off the page and arrange themselves in your mind as precisely the concept that the author intended? Even if that is the standard you are looking for, it would have nothing to do with inerrancy. "Do I understand what the author is saying?" is a completely different question than "Is what the author is saying true?"

Why don't you find out how the secular academic world goes about interpreting and apply those same principles to the Bible? Simply ask the leading scholars how they go about interpreting (discovering what the author meant) Homer's Oddessy or Plato's Republic. Then take the same approach to scripture. Even a half hearted attempt to do that would explain 90% of all apparant "contradictions" in scripture.

We're mainly talking about simple and widely accepted rules of scholarship here. Things like "consider the grammer" and "would the historical context have caused this to mean something different to the original audience that it typically means today." Wildly speculative rules such as those. Even your cat Spunky could figure it out.

Again, any time words are processed through someone's brain they are "interpreted." That's just a consequence of using words.

And the vast majority of scripture IS clear. There are some difficult passages, but they are very few. Anyone with a mediocre mind and a Bible who bothers to actually read scripture can understand 90% of what they read there. Trust me, I know this from experience. Scripture is so simple that a child can understand it, and yet so deep that theologians can spend a lifetime mining the truth out of a single verse.

What a well reasoned and objective argument!

What does that mean? Please elaborate.

Since the definition of "inerrant" and "infallable" are relevant, let me describe what I mean by those terms.

inerrant - Scripture in it's entirety in the original manuscripts is free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

infallable - Scripture in it's entirety in the original manuscripts is true and reliable in all that matters that it addresses.

That is the short definitions. I do in fact believe that the Bible is inerrant and infallable. A more detailed discussion of what I mean by those statements can be found here:

http://www.gty.org/~phil/creeds/chicago.htm

And for what it is worth, inerrant does mean inerrant and infallable does mean infallable. The process of accurately grasping what the authors meant (interpretation) is a separate and largely unrelated issue.

Respectfully,

Christian

Hawkingfan

This is your opinion. Scripture cannot be so evidently clear when there are so many divisions in the church who disagree over what scripture is saying. Also, if you stick around II awhile, you'll see many different ways people look at scripture. Have you met Amos?
I strongly disagree with what you say about understanding 90% of what one reads. I once gave a bible to someone who had never read a word of it before and they tried reading it, and they never understood it. If someone was there to tell them what it was saying, then they would understand it perhaps. And I seriously doubt that a child (let's say, the age of 10 and lower) could read the bible and tell you what it was about. Would they understand the sexuality behind the Song of Solomon? Could they give you a definite answer on what it takes to be saved (with no coaching from anyone else)?

Babylon Sister

Babs

Christian

Hawkingfan,

I'm making a sweeping generalization here (RE the clarity of scirpture), so of course there will be exceptions. For any idea that exists there is probably someone in history that tried to tie to to the Bible, but the existence of fringe interpretations on nonessential doctrines does not discount the large body of essential doctrine in scripture that 90% of Christians agree on.

Respectfully,

Christian

Ion

I don't see this in Genesis:
Care to correct the 'Word of God' in a revised and improved Bible, anime?
Can malookiemaloo help you?
And Christian?

Until then, I see in Genesis 6:3:

"My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."

There is no "...before the Flood." in there.

I swear.

This means that any human living over 120 years, contradicts the alleged 'God'.

That French lived more.

Therefore, the 'Word of God' in the Bible is dismissed as baloney, right here.

anime

If you had read my post correctly, you would have read that it is a mistake to interpret that verse as meaning 120 years before the flood.

The qualifier is the singular for Adam with the artical:

ha'adam = the man Adam, and not mankind in general.