Infallibility should be defined, as different groups understand the concept differently. A parallel example is the word "saved." The difference between what we Orthodox consider "saved" and most if not all Protestants do, is like night and day.
Consider the word "sin," the central term in Christian theology. It's understanding in the west is diametrically opposite to that of the east, like night and day.
So, we are very much talking right past each other, using the same terminology but not the meaning.
Until we know what we mean when we say the Bible is (in)fallible, we cannot have a constructive discussion. My definition can be summarized as follows: does the Old Testament reflect accurately God, as we know Him through Jesus Christ? I say I don't see it. The Church say it does if the Old Testament is interpreted correctly. I ask for correct interpretation of examples of alleged divine cruelty and I get nothing. In short: I am not convinced because all I do is express doubt and all the other side does is make extraordinary claims without extraordinary proofs!
The Protestants are not too far apart. They simply sya the Bible isthe word of God. When I ask the how do they know that, they tell me they are "guided by the Holy Spirit." When I ask them to show me that this is so, they can't. I am not covninced! Again, I express doubts and the other side makes extraordinary claims without extraordinary proofs!
When exactly did "inspired" become synonymous with "infallible?" yes, of course the scriputrees are inspired, something or someone inspired (i.e. moved, animated) the authors to sit down and start writing.
The fact that they called bats birds to me means that they wrote most of the book and not God, even if God served as their inspiration to write by certain revelations about the world, for God would not deliberately mislead people into making factual errors because God is not the source of corruption; we are.
Also, I hold the opinion that whatever we might find disturbing is not to be simply discarded (I have first-hand experience of the results of this, and it ain't pretty), because further examination or interpretation might reveal treasures that we never could have imagined we might find
That may very well be true. It certainly rings that way. But we are the stories about Sabbaths rmeind us that we are judged by the intent, not the act itself. As you posted in your next post, St. John of Damascus reminds us of that when he talks about the "breaking" of the Sabbath, and Jewish obssessive-compulsive traditions regarding mitzvot.
It is utterly un-Orthodox to argue that if we discard or doubt something in the Bible it's not gonna be pretty. You will never be sent to hell in the Orthodox Church, you will never be subject of fire and brimstone terrorist approach to "loving" God with all our hearts and minds and soul.
One way, it seems, we know God is through love and mercy. The latter seems to be absent in all living beings except in (some of) us, in whom it exists as a divine potential, which we can either nourish for the good, or we can abuse it for evil ends.
God—our Christian God—does not draw us by fear but through love. People run away from that which is fearful, which is why som many in th west have abandoned the wrathful God. How can you love a tyrant?
And is it not scriptural that our Christian God does not return evil for evil? But rather provides us with more blessings? How can then such things as earthquakes and tsunamis and what not be seen as God's wrath? And how does the OT God's drowing of the entire world reflect that Christ who never returns evil for evil?
It should also be differentiated from inerrancy. Inerrancy is a lack of error, while infallibility is the incapability of error.
A parallel example is the word "saved." The difference between what we Orthodox consider "saved" and most if not all Protestants do, is like night and day.
Have either of you read C.S. Lewis, especially The Great Divorce? It may not be "Orthodox", but perhaps it might (if nothing else) show you something a little different than you're used to seeing from "the West". This is from the Preface:
Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable "either-or"; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot "develop" into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, "with backward mutters of dissevering power"--or else not. It is still "either-or." If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) was precisely nothing: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in "the High Countries." In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere Heaven.
But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
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Kosta: It is utterly un-Orthodox to argue that if we discard or doubt something in the Bible it's not gonna be pretty.
First, I'm not Orthodox, so that doesn't exactly apply to me. :) Second (and more seriously and more importantly) I never said anything about doubt. Doubt can be a very useful thing, and is the basis of scientific inquiry. In fact, if taken seriously, it shows us just how little we actually know, and demonstrates the necessity of faith.
God—our Christian God—does not draw us by fear...
If that were true in full generality, then why did Christ speak of punishment at all? Why wasn't He gentler when He rebuked the Pharisees, when He told the parable of the talents, or when he talked about the goats and the sheep? Do you think that makes Him some sort of "divine terrorist"? Fear can be an attention-grabber. God does not force us to do anything, but there many ways in which He gets our attention.
...but through love.
Yes, always!