Posted on 05/01/2011 7:24:18 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
Well said. Thank you.
Why?
Good morning Jim! (7:00 AM local on Sunday as I type).
I do not agree with his conclusion. It is equivalent to me stating that Godel's proof is false because of "spelling" errors. Godel's proof is true.(or technically, valid)
There is definitely NO such "equivalent".
The idea that we can have inerrant "COPIES" of the original autographs is held by no one....other than perhaps the King James Only crowd.
But of course, skeptics are welcome to send suggestions on how such a process would be accomplished.
What are your unique "process" suggestions, other than those that have already been addressed in the commentary linked above)?
"...many believers today have a view of inerrancy that could not possibly have been that of that of the writers of the Bible. They fail to account for differences in the way ancient persons thought, acted, or perceived the world. At the same time, Skeptics, too, have the same sort of misconceptions, basically these: That, as one writer puts it, inerrancy means that God preserved the text through the ages and through translations inerrantly. This is held by no one I know of other than perhaps the King James Only crowd. That "error" is judged based on 21st century standards of what constitutes a mistake - when in fact, we ought to judge by the standards of the day in which the Bible was written. ....
The question that must be asked is, "Would this be regarded as 'inerrant' by the standards of those who originally wrote the text?" The answer in every case I have found so far is NO -- and the difficulty is increased because inevitably what the ancients regarded as a form of narrative art -- within which precision could acceptably be compromised -- is regarded as an "error" today.
....it is plain that neither the Bible nor a belief in inerrancy is required to be a Christian. If this were so, then skeptics like Frank Morison or C. S. Lewis, who believed in the historicity of the Resurrection but not in the inerrancy of the Gospel reports of it, would never become Christians. People behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains would never have become Christians in times when the Bible was forbidden in those countries and they often had no more of the Bible than a few pitiable verses handwritten on a paper towel.
Finally, ... literacy would be a prerequisite for belief, which would be absurd being that the Bible was written in a time when up to 95% of the given population was illiterate. .......Moreover, given the circumstances, it is clear that "the Word of God" for most people was not what was written on paper, but was the original idea (what I have called the "home office" copy) recorded on paper. Few could have appreciated the significance of a written, inerrant original document.
....When discussing Biblical inerrancy, it is important to remember that ONLY the original texts of the Bible are claimed to have been inerrant. Furthermore, one might suggest that the "original" text was in something of a different format. How? Take the book of Ezekiel as an example. Zeke certainly didn't bang out all 48 chapters of his book in one sitting; his oracles were composed over his lifetime, and were collected together at a later date (by him, or by one of his students; it makes no difference), when - presumably - they were put together into the unified whole like that we now have. But did the collector of this material leave everything "as it was"? In all likelihood, yes, given the reverence held for the work of a prophet; but this would not necessarily prevent the addition of transitional phrases needed to make the oracles into a sensible whole. Skeptics will throw up their hands at this and ask how we can therefore believe accept our present text, since any number of errors could have crept in.
At this we should reply with: The OT is 95% accurately transcribed; the NT, 99%. That means (in a Bible without any commentary) 50 pages of your OT and 3 pages of your NT may have been fumbled by later writers. Since most of the "errors" critics harp on turn upon no more than one or two letters or words, those 53 pages give us plenty of room to accept intellectually the idea that the original texts were inerrant! ...... Skeptical obfuscation in this area, however, abounds: One 19th-century Skeptic said that there were "150,000 blunders in the Hebrew and 7,000 in the Greek." That sounds bad until you remember that these "blunders" consist for the largest part of JUST ONE LETTER OR NUMERAL spread across multiple copies! Thus, if a letter is put 26 different ways in 26 different manuscripts, that counts as 26 "errors".
Let's keep things on perspective, here! It should be obvious that since many of the "errors" in our Bibles turn on single letters, numbers or words, no doctrine of Christian belief is the least bit altered by any questionable reading in Scripture.
Nor does salvation require a functional belief in inerrancy; indeed, if it did, those who were illiterate or did not have a Bible in their own language could never be saved. The number of horses in Solomon's army, the name of Saul's daughter who had no children - these things should be recognized and corrections noted, but they should be no cause for shipwreck of anyone's faith or an excuse for disbelief in the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ.
....No convinced skeptic will turn to Christ simply because we explain why Chronicles says Ahab's bathtub held 75 gallons while Kings says 85. Their reasons for disbelief are beyond that. ....."
My point sailed completely over your head. Suffice it to say you are correct when using the wisdom of men. That said, I have no interest in discussing the wisdom of men with you and you can discuss the errors in the Bible with unbelievers. And to alleviate your quivering heart, I do love the King James version, but it is a translation.
:)
At the risk of being misunderstood, may I suggest that you include this viewpoint along with your link to "inerrancy- is it real or imagined?"(paraphrased of course).
I don't use the word inerrant. I use "true"/"the truth".
P.S. ;^)
Your point is moot.
But you could have saved yourself the trouble if you were a careful reader. You skimmed over this little tid-bit in my previous post on "inerrancy":
I did not skim over it. That said, I repeat "... I have no interest in discussing the wisdom of men with you ..."
:)
But that didn't stop your post about a moot point to someone who cannot respond.
#3579 post was to me. I think I can respond even if I didn’t. Thanks
and in context it reads
12After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.God has clearly said -- believe and be baptise and you shall be saved. If you don't believe, then baptism can't help you and you shall be damned.
13And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.
14Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
But the clear point is you believe then you get baptised.
These are the words of Christ.
Baptism sans belief does not help, but Christ says believe and be baptised -- it is if you do A (believe) then get B (baptism) done. If you don't do A, then B has no point. This does not mean that B is not necessary, just that it does not stand on its own.
For the Lord says, ‘Except a man be baptized of water and of the Spirit, he shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.’
this is the wisdom of men, using human logic when Jesus Christ's words are so simple: The one who "believes and is baptized shall be saved," (Mark 16:16) -- you do A (believe), then B (baptism) follows and you shall be saved. You don't do A (believe), then B does not follow, hence you won't be saved. Yet, CHRIST HIMSELF says you MUST do A and then B.
Paul only elaborates past the simple message of Christ.:
Acts 2:38,
| 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. |
| 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name. |
| 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. |
| 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God |
| 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. |
| 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ |
| to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, |
| 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh[a] was put off when you were circumcised by[b] Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. |
| 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, |
Rom 6:4
| 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. |
Titus 3:5
| 5Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; |
| 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. |
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