- Biblical Inspiration and Inerrancy

Verne, :)

I feel bad for you that you seem to be talking to yourself so I'll step in. You already have an idea of what I have come to see about the Bible on Mythology Thread.

I will quote what I wrote there:

My whole point in bringing up this whole issue is it is dangerous to state the Bible is inerrant in all matters including science because when people focus on the obvious fact that the Bible is NOT inerrant in all things it does keep them from “missing the voice of God” simply due to the fact that many Christians are falsely teaching that the Bible is inerrant. I have continued this dialogue simply because I passionately believe that the manmade belief in inerrancy is a hinderance or stumbling block to many who would hear the message of the Bible. And Christians can also be blinded to the voice of reason by assumptions that the Bible is inerrant just as non-Christians can be blinded to the voice of God that the Bible is flawed.

I did not come to believe that the Bible was errant because I wanted to have an excuse not to believe in God. I still believe in God! I also still believe in the message of the Bible, the Bible is still the most influential book in my life and I very highly esteem it as a communicator of spiritual truth and early history. I don’t think that higher criticism is THE way to understand the Bible, but, to answer MGov’s question, I believe, like Luther, that it takes one’s reason and conscience to understand its message. My faith has not been lost because I have come to see that the Bible is errant. On the contrary, the more I read about the Bible, history, etc. the more I feel enriched. If you only read the Bible and reinforce your beliefs through reading books that support your viewpoints, you will be missing out on a bigger picture. To refuse to take the time and honestly examine discrepancies—the things that are keeping many people from accepting Christianity because of this manmade belief about inerrancy—is an indication that you only want to believe what you want to believe. I wanted to believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures when I started my studies, but that belief slowly dissolved as I was open and honest with myself that what I was seeing disproved what I wanted to believe.

So I will ask again, How do you deal with the fact that in Genesis 1 mankind was created last but in Genesis 2 Mankind is made before the things listed in Genesis 1? How do you deal with the fact that Adam is made before such things as the birds, trees and animals and that he took time to name all the creatures BEFORE he fell asleep and God created Eve? Even if you explain away the order, which you cannot honestly, I would wager that it would take more than a day for Adam to feel lonely and name all the animals before God created Eve. (Does that include the dinosaurs and the millions of extents species that once lived?) The order of creation simply does not match up in the two creation stories, but Bibles like the NIV try to fix the translation to try and make them match up. But you cannot simply ignore it. Can anyone answer my questions? It was Peter who suggested that WE deal with each “contradiction” one by one. So here is the first one.

I have said my peace. I have a feeling that the answers will not be forthcoming or satisfactory unless the theory of inerrancy is dropped and the theory of two creation stories is accepted as a strong possibility. Is there anyone bold enough to answer ALL of these questions and deal with the fact that the Bible, in many places, describes an errant cosmology?

You started to answer these and other questions on the other thread but did not do so in a satisfactory way PLUS you have not gotten back to me on the other discrepancies because you were afraid of "boring" the readers. Please, like so many Christian apologists, don't selectively deal with issues if you are going to claim that the Bible is inerrant. Instead of just dealing with theological arguements and skipping over parts of the arguement that cannot be refutted, deal with the facts as they are and ALL the issues that are presented against your assertions. :)

Also, you challenged anyone to indict Scripture based on its prophetic witness and, based on recent surfing I have done, I found someone who seems interested in that challenge. Some skeptics have created a 174-item list of "False Prophecies, Broken Promises, and Misquotes in the Bible." I do not endorse the list as I have not taken the time to examine them yet, but here it is. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/prophecy.html
Have a look and tell us what you think. :)

ALso, here is 1010 supposed Bible contradictions:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra.html

And another list of how science does not seem to accord with the certain parts of the Bible:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science.html

It will only take one errant passage to disprove the supposed inerrancy of the Bible.

Verne you said,

It is my sincere hope that this thread will indeed become a proving ground for the combatants on the subject of Biblical inerrancy.

I do not look at myself as a “combatant,” but as someone engaged in a dialogue. :) However, I find it interesting that you are looking at this dialogue as a kind of war to protect “the subject of Biblical inerrancy.” You have a lot to protect, especially given the fact that so many Christians before the 19th Century did not consider the Bible inerrant! I am not attacking the Bible. On the contrary, Christians who preach the Bible is inerrant have unknowingly sabotaged the spiritual authority of the Bible because many people do not regard the Bible as inerrant nowadays and scoff at how Princeton Scholars and Fundamentalist foolishly have attempted to exalt the Bible as an authority in matters of spirituality and science. I have described my position in detail in the mythology thread.

MGov, to answer your question again, I use my reason and conscience to understand the message of the Bible and I have already in many places described that message—God loved us and will forgive us and gave us Jesus to show us the way to an abundant life with God, etc. In another place I wrote, ”many Christians such as Luther, Augustine, Origen and others did not discount the message of the Bible simply because they believed it erred in matters of fact. The Bible relays truth, not THE TRUTH. It contains what scholars call the Kerigma or Kerugma: the gospel, the good news of salvation that God loves us and will forgive us.”

There is no doubt the Scriptures are inspired as it says in 2 Timothy, but inspiration does not imply “inerrancy,” a word that was only used in the early 19th Century to by Princeton Scholars and later Fundamentalists used. I have shown in other threads that many famous Christians such as Luther and the early Church Fathers like Origen and Augustine DID NOT accept the Bible as perfect, but did accept its overall message. Inerrancy is a 19th Century theological term that uses inspiration as a jumping point. To believe the Bible is perfect in every word is a relatively new development in Christendom and it has turned many people off to Christianity because they can’t or won’t accept the Bible as inerrant in matters of science because there are plenty of verses that betray the fact that ancients were, in many cases, wrong in matters of science.

THE LINK YOU GAVE, “The Bible is Full of Mistakes,” presented a very poor argument about the “supernatural origin of the Bible.” This is a prime example of how Christians are often guilty of accepting selective facts and ignoring others when they attempt to push their relatively new theological theory of inerrancy. Here is my reply to the poor argument presented in your link: http://wayofthemaster.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=244&Category_Code=Booklets

The first reason for a belief in the supernatural origin of the Bible was signs of the end times, signs that skeptics say have always been present. This argument really goes nowhere because it depends what you want to believe. The skeptics quote sources from writers in the last two thousand years that claim it is the end times and that immorality, etc. has escalated. This argument will not convince anyone because it is a matter of interpretation—applying events described in the Bible to present day trends. When given the example of the rebirth of Israel, skeptics might counter that Jesus said in the penultimate verse of the Bible that he was coming “quickly” and that the early believers—for hundreds of years—thought they were living in the end times. The point is, Christians focus on INSPIRATION (and wrongly on inerrancy) whereas skeptics focus on the fact that HUMANS WROTE THE BIBLE. God inspired humans to write the Bible, humans who communicated the message of God but wrote according to their cultural understanding. Inspired YES; perfect NO. As it says in 2 Timothy, all Scripture is inspired (not written by God) and is profitable for establishing doctrine and how to live your life before God, NOT perfection in all matters such as science.

The second reason given to accept the Bible as supernatural in origin demonstrates how Christian apologists are often very selective when it comes to presenting their argument and very selective in seeing other verses that state the contrary:
“Second, the Bible was written thousands of years ago but has many scientific and medical facts, such as the earth’s free-float in space, the earth being round, principles of sterilization and quarantine, etc., proving it is supernatural in origin.”
There are many more passages in the Bible that talk about the earth being flat and immovable and even immovable with pillars. I have already written in another thread that the writers of the Bible displayed a very errant understanding of cosmology in Genesis 1 and elsewhere in the Bible.
Here is an interesting article you might want to read later: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm. As I wrote on the other thread,

If you read Genesis 1, the earth is considered flat because there is this dome or firmament over the earth that holds back the waters above, waters that later fell through “floodgates of the sky” or “windows of the heavens” (Gen. 7:11) in the two flood stories of Noah. So far, the Hubble telescope has not found this firmament of water in the heavens or any windows of heaven. Ancients did not understand the water cycle or what lies beyond our sky. This is not just poetic or figurative or phenomenological language because extra-Biblical writings have demonstrated that the ancient Hebrews and other cultures saw the earth as a kind of flat object (the four corners of the earth, etc.) that had a dome or sky above it much like a futuristic city with a dome over it might look like on Mars or the Moon, but Genesis 1 says that there is water above this firmament that God divided. Have a look at http://www.siena.edu/tamburello/Cosmology%20of%20Genesis%201.ppt that gives a diagram of the universe that Hebrews envisioned. And please don’t bother quoting Isaiah 40:22 because it states that God sits above the circle of the earth which can also be interpreted as the dome of the firmament AND this is only one verse versus the many verses that describe a flat earth.

The point is, the ancient writers of the Bible thought there was water magically held back by God in the sky, that God lived in heaven, that there was a type of hell in the earth, that it rained when God opened the windows of heaven, etc. This ancient cosmology is WRONG. If you accept Genesis 1 as fact as Fundamentalists and Evangelicals tend to do, the fact is the Bible betrays the fact that the writers wrote according to their understanding at the time, an understanding that we know today is wrong. Therefore, the Bible is not inerrant because it describes a cosmology that is errant.

Therefore, this second argument can also be used to assert that this proves the Bible is not “supernatural in origin.” If you are going to claim, like so many Christians do who believe in inerrancy, that a few selectively picked passages prove the supernatural origin BUT ignore so many other passages that are contrary to the passages you have focused on, you open yourself to ridicule by making a claim that can easily be turned on its head to prove the exact opposite. This is dishonest scholarship and demonstrates a type of blindness—a refusal to incorporate all facts and arrive at a logical conclusion.

Thirdly, it gives answers to mankind’s greatest mystery—the reason we die.
Other revered books also give their take on why humans die so this does not make the Bible unique.

The tract said, "If I didn’t believe in trucks and stood on the freeway, it wouldn’t change reality." Well... If you believe in inerrancy and tried to argue your point, it wouldn’t change reality.

So far, nobody has tried to deal with the questions I put forward on this and the other thread because they are clear contradictions if you believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures. To make it easier, here they are again in different form that I accept people to attempt to deal with if they will continue to claim inerrancy:

(1) How do you deal with the fact that in Genesis 1 mankind was created last but in Genesis 2 Mankind is made before the things listed in Genesis 1? Is this a contradiction, YES or NO? These facts contradict themselves if you don’t understand that there are two creation stories described here. If you don’t believe there are two creation stories, this is a contradiction. CONTRADICTION NUMBER ONE.

(2) How do you deal with the fact that Adam is made before such things as the birds, trees and animals and that he took time to name all the creatures BEFORE he fell asleep and God created Eve? Is this a contradiction, YES or NO? These facts contradict themselves if you don’t understand that there are two creation stories described here. If you don’t believe there are two creation stories, this is a contradiction. CONTRADICTION NUMBER TWO. Even if you explain away the order, which you cannot honestly, I would wager that it would take more than a day for Adam to feel lonely and name all the animals before God created Eve. (Does that include the dinosaurs and the millions of extents species that once lived?) The order of creation simply does not match up in the two creation stories, but Bibles like the NIV try to fix the translation to try and make them match up.

(3) How do you explain away all of the errant references to cosmology in Genesis and other books of the Bible? Does the Bible in many places relate an ancient, incorrect view of Cosmology—YES! CONTRADICTION NUMBER THREE. (Throw out the “phenomenological” counterargument because it is just an attempt to explain away the fact that the ancients INCORRECTLY described the world as they saw it. It is true that the ancients wrote the Bible according to what their perspective on the universe, but what they saw was incorrect and that makes what they wrote incorrect and errant from the standards of modern science AND this makes the Bible errant. Does the Bible in many places relate an ancient, incorrect, PHENOMENOLOGOICAL view of Cosmology—YES! CONTRADICTION NUMBER THREE .)

It only takes ONE contradiction in the Bible to disprove the manmade notion of inerrancy. Here are three very clear contradictions and we have not moved very far beyond the first few chapters of Genesis. Conclusion: the Bible is not inerrant because it was written by men who were inspired by God to communicate the message of God.

I have made my point and will rest my case unless someone can deal with ALL THREE contradictions. If you accept that Genesis has two creation stories, there is still on very big contradiction—the ancients phenomenological understanding of the universe is wrong or imperfect; therefore, the Bible is not inerrant in matters of science and to claim otherwise is to be deceived and cause a stumbling block to those who might accept Christianity if it were not for a false “selling” of the Bible.

i bring this over from another thread, because it is equally applicable here:

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Because, generally speaking, i am far out of my depth in these discussions, i have been more a reader than a poster on this topic. When i did venture forth to post questions, the parties of whom i directly asked them seemed to either dance around the subject without directly answering OR occupy themselves with answering on behalf of their "opposition" instead of themselves.
The home in which i was reared taught me long ago that some people would rather argue than not, and to them it is more important to win than to learn. But there is enough of the optimist in me that i yet hope to elicit an honest answer, and so i post a question once again:

Will has told us repeatedly that inerrancy regarding the bible is a concept created in the nineteenth century, and that prior to that time (the first 1,800+ years of Christianity) God's people accepted that the message of the bible was the truth of the gospel, and the specific wording was not an issue. He has said that the early councils that were convened to decide matters of doctrine were held because the manuscripts available at that time were not considered to be inerrant. Furthermore, Will tells us that later key men in church history, e.g. Augustine, Origen and Luther did not have a belief in the bible as being flawless.

So here is my twofold question of Tom, Verne, or anyone professing that the bible is inerrant:

A.] Is there any EVIDENCE to refute Will's claim that inerrancy was not generally claimed prior to its initiation by the Princeton Scholars in the 1800s? And, if so, please tell us SPECIFICALLY what that evidence is. This has not been adequately addressed, if at all.

B.] If there is no such evidence, i.e. if the early church, and God's people for centuries thereafter, have triumphed and progressed WITHOUT the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy, why is it suddenly so essential that we accept it? If God was able to keep and to bless the redeemed for all those centuries without such a belief, can't/won't he continue to do so?

This is as honest a question as i know how to ask.
i have the greatest admiration ("awe" would not be too strong a term) for studious and scholarly people, particularly saints. But it is not my forte. My I.Q. is supposedly above average, but my abilities as a student are quite limited, and often strained. What intellectual pursuits some deeply love and enjoy cause me intense headaches without producing a high-grade result.
So PLEASE try to answer so all may understand. We are already impressed with your background, standing and vocabulary. You don't need to impress us-- just teach us...

Expectantly,
al Hartman

Verne, :)

I agree with your exhortation to be careful readers of God’s word, but you need to follow your own advice. The verse you quote is Genesis 2:1 and then you tell me to “there is no view whatever to sequence...that was already given in chapter one. Note ordinal and sequential descriptors are used there only.” You put special emphasis on “only YET “the seventh day,” an ordinal and sequential descriptor, is used in verse two and three of Genesis 2. You have just stumbled over your own foot. :o

Textual Critics think that the second account of creation begins in verse 4: “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord made earth and heaven” (NASB). Genesis 2:4 and onwards claims to be “the account”—a separate creation story than Genesis 1-2:3—in “the day,” not the seven days, that “the LORD God made earthy and heaven.” Yet you state wrongly that “Genesis 2 is not an account of original creation” but this is not what Genesis 2:4 says and what so many Biblical scholars believe! Why would Genesis 2 mention again about God creating different things as if we have forgotten them after reading Genesis 1? Simple: because they are separate stories. If you compare the two creation stories, there is a problem if you think that Genesis 1-3 is a literal and coherent account of creation.

So I don’t agree with your theory that order does not matter in the second creation story which starts at Genesis 2:4. Even if you don’t agree with the order contradictions, do you not think it would take more than a day to name all the animals that exist and existed (including the dinosaurs?), realize that none of them were God enough as a helper of Adam, Adam falls asleep, and God creates Eve. That is one full day especially if you add up the time it would take for Adam to name all the animals of the past and present! And what about those poor dinosaurs and the age of the earth? :)

I suggest you rethink your attempt at dealing with the first of many contradictions because you have contradicted yourself in attempting to deal with a clear contradiction.

You wrote,

The point I am making is that errantists must necessarily take the postion that God is not the author of Scripture.
What ever you think of Will''s position, one has to respect his diligence and consistency. Errantists must inevitably relegate the certainty of their salvation to the foggy hinterlands of nervous, hopeful uncertainty.
Those of you standing on the sidelines I would like to encourage you to use the brain and intellect God gave you to wrestle with these matters. We are ehxorted to study to show ourselves approved unto God...Get out your lexicons, word studies etc. and let us see some thoughtful posts to Will's challenges...contend for the faith...!!!
Verne

My reply: Men, inspired by God, are the authors of Scripture… At least, that is what the Bible says. Do you have the gift of prophecy to be able to state that I “relegate the certainty of [my] salvation to the foggy hinterlands of nervous, hopeful uncertainty” simply because I believe that the Bible is not inerrant in matters of 21st Century science? ;) No, I have already told you I believe in the message of the Bible and that believing in an inerrant Bible has no bearing whatsoever on a person’s salvation. Contend for the faith? Have I not been arguing that falsely advocating that the Bible is inerrant in matters of science is a stumbling block to those who might accept the faith? To make a belief in inerrancy synonymous with believing in the gospel like so many Christians do turns people off to the Bible because they see the Bible is filled with references to an archaic cosmology that we know today is false.

Verne, :)

You have an interesting habit of guessing what I am thinking and then attempting to think for me by following a line of thinking that you think that I might be thinking. Please stop it. ;)

Will you cannot have it both ways. Either God is fully responsible for the Scripture he gave us or He is not. Saying it is authored by men inspired by God skirts the issue, Whose message is it?

I have never asked to have it both ways: Men, inspired by God, are the authors of Scripture and communicated the message of God. The message of the Bible rises above the different author's cultural understanding and writing styles: the Bible communicates the Kerigma or Kerugma: the gospel, the good news of salvation that God loves us and will forgive us. You can read a letter of your mother or wife and the message will be: I love you and miss you, even though she may have been wrong on matters of science and history as she related IN GREAT DETAIL what she had been doing that week. THE MESSAGE versus SPECIFIC DETAILS that may betray human fallibility.

I have already wrote about my perception of inspiration in an earlier post:

I have a much broader notion of inspiration than most Fundamentalists do. I believe that God has inspired more than just the books of the Bible. Early Christian groups believed that certain books they used were inspired. I also believe that God still inspires people to write things. Will anyone disagree with me that the poem "Footprints" has not been inspired in some way by God? Have you ever felt "inspired" to do something because you felt enthusiastic or lead to do something? "Enthusiastic" comes from two Greek works meaning "the indwelling of God." But I am getting ahead of myself and will describe how I believe God can inspire us today after I deal with the notion that inspiration = inerrancy.

The verse I referred to above in 2 Timothy is often linked to the word "the breath of God" or "God-breathed" that is used in Genesis 2 (the second creation story) where God breathed life into the clay that became human. Some use this possible link to argue that God made Adam and Eve perfect so that means the Scriptures are perfect. This is a giant leap in logic. God made them "complete" or "perfect" as humans beings who are not capably of God-like perfection in all their thoughts, words and actions. Well, if you want to believe that perfection here means the same as inerrancy, Adam and Eve were also human and they were capable of making mistakes and did make mistakes because they were given free will. They did not have perfect knowledge or perfect writing abilities as far as we know. :) God, after giving them the breath of life, never controlled them or make them act certain ways. Just as I do not believe God controlled the writers of Scripture when they penned the Books of the Bible and the other non-canonical works that were and still are in existence.

Now we get to HOW Scripture was written. I have written short stories, essays, books, and novels. There have been times when I felt so inspired and the words came to me like a kind of magic. However, I have made many technological mistakes and errors in fact, spelling, grammar, etc. when in this kind of state. Poets and playwrights, especially in the time of Wordsworth and Coleridge, had much to say about this mystical kind of inspiration. This could be the kind of inspiration that the Bible is talking about. This is NOT a kind of automatic writing. My personality, ideas, knowledge of the present world, my personal biases, etc. still shone through my writings. Did God dictate Scripture to the ancients in a way that compelled them to write perfectly? The Vatican II document Dei Verbum states that "God" is the "author" of Scripture (and the Catholics have a different notion of Scripture than do the Protestants!) but the writers are "true authors" of what they have written: "God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted." Thus, the authors "made use of their powers and abilities" when writing according to the knowledge of their time, e.g., they used incorrect cosmological references, etc. If you continue reading the document, you see that "those things which He wanted" were "that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation," not inerrancy in matters of science, etc.! The context of 2 Timothy is that God inspired the Scriptures to be profitable/good for matters of doctrine and spiritual practice, not to be inerrant in matters of science and history.

Inspiration, in my mind, does not mean perfection like Fundamentalists do when they (more or less) lump inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy into the same boat to attempt to prove their relatively modern stance on how to interpret the Bible. As I have said before, church history that demonstrates Christians made comments on errancy in the Bible, modern science that shows the cosmological views of the ancients to be incorrect, and the Bible itself that never claims to be inerrant demonstrates that the Bible was written by humans who are not perfect because there are discrepancies in the Bible if the reader is observant and honest to themselves, discrepancies that some have made an attempt to deal with. Some can be argued away; others cannot.

Even though you feel you have dealt with the first two contradictions in your mind, you still have not dealt with the third contradiction and you never will because the Bible is filled with unscientific references to an ancient cosmology we know today to be false.

One of the major mistakes that bible skeptics continually make is what Joseph Dillow(The Reign of the Servant Kings) calls illegitimate totality transfer. This refers to the practice of people trying to interpret a biblical concept like (creation) and then drawing all kinds of conclusions based on their definition of what the word means. What they fail to realize that many times in the Greek and Hebrew there are many different words and definitions for the English word. A little biblical exegesis will in most cases clear up the misconception.

For example in Genesis 1&2 we have a number of different words for create.
Some of the Hebrew words in Genesis 1&2 used for create.

bara- to create out of nothing- used in reference to God who creates ex nihilo.

hayah- be or become, to set in order, come to pass

asah-to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest application(I won't type them all here but this word can be used for about 60 different words in English.

These are just three of the words for create used in Genesis 1&2. There are many others in the Hebrew language.
To illustrate this, consider the verse in Isaiah 45:18"For thus saith the Lord that created (bara) the heavens; God himself that formed (yatsar) the earth and made (asah) it; he hath established (kun) it, he created (bara) it not in vain, he formed (yatar) it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else." (Vine's Dictionary of the Old Testament)

Why is this important? Genesis 1&2 make a lot more sense if you understand this.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created(bara) the heavens and the earth.
Gen1:3 And God said, Let there be (hayah) light and there was light.
God had already created the heavens and the earth in Gen 1:1, in Gen 1:3 He is setting it in order. We don't have the word (bara) used in this chapter again until he creates man.
Gen1:4b and God divided(badal) the light from the darkness.
Gen1:14 And God said, Let there be (hayah)lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night,
Gen1:16 And God made(asah) two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also.

Now these words bara, hayah, and asah are different Hebrew words. If they are different words then they must mean different things. The word asah alone can have over 60 different meanings in English. God created light and then set in order in different aspects in regard to his creation.
Gen chapter one- We see God as Elohim (the Creator)
Gen chapter two- We see God as the Lord God . Lord(Yehovah) his covenant name, God(Elohim)(Creator)
Not two creation stories, but two different aspects of God's relationship with his creation. Gen1 God's relationship with his creation as Creator. Gen 2 God's relationship with His creation using the name that identifies the covenant relationship with his people.
In scripture the Holy Spirit will give an overall view of things and then go back and make emphasis on specifics. It is a wonderful thing to see. Check out the book of Revelation with the Seven seals( the overall scope of the book in the first part) Then through the rest of the book you move back and forth in the space time continuum as the Holy Spirit makes His particular emphasis on each part. It may be hard to follow chronologically but it will yield tremendous fruit if you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you.

I Cor 2:14" The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Natural man doesn't have the capability to understand the things of the Spirit of God with his unaided intellect.

I Cor 2:10" But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

I would like to recommend a good book on Genesis called "Genesis Unbound" by John Sailhammer. John Sailhammer is a great Hebrew scholar who has written a number of very good books.

Paul Hohulin

Verne, :)

I have intended more than once to withdraw from this dialogue. Thanks to your recent posts, however, I have been getting more than a few letters of support. It is clear to me and to those who have written me that seem to be getting frustrated and are bouncing around without dealing with the issues directly. For example, your original post of April 20th that you edited a few hours later so it would not come across so huffy and cutting at the end. To cite a few more examples, your quoting at length of Dr. Gleason L. Archer, calling into question my ability to share the gospel, you challenging me with other questions so that you will not have to answer Contradiction Three, and you attempting to make me look silly by pretending to think or speak for me on more than one occasion is showing that you have lost focus and forgotten that this is just a dialogue among brothers and sisters. :)

I am thankful for this dialogue, as I have said before because it has caused me to re-examine my beliefs and I have found yet again that the notion of inerrancy comes out wanting. In fact, I have found more passages in the Bible than I had in the past that demonstrates that men were inspired by God to communicate the gospel—the message of truth in the Bible, not give a perfectly reliable account of science. You said to me that you would disprove the first three contradictions I brought up. In your mind, you have dealt with the one and two but I knew you would stumble over Contradiction Three as I have and so many others have.

You wrote,

The Bible is a work of literature. Why do errantists petulantly hold the Bible to a standard that is different from that generally applied to such works?. Employment of figures of speech is common technique in works of literature of every kind! - Allegory, Metaphor, Hyperbole.
Is anyone reading these passages contextually prepared to argue that the writer intended to present a cosmological construct or dissertation? That is not, in my view, a reasonable stance.
Please consider the passage given to us in Isaiah 24:20:

The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
Isaiah 24: 20

I would like to submit that this verse more closely approaches cosmological commentary.

Sorry, Verne, you are taking one passage and attempting to hint that we should understand this to mean that the cosmology related in the Bible is either figurative or poetic but not literal. The ancients in Genesis 1 and throughout the Bible were relating their view of cosmology that they believed was true and what we know today is quite false. As your Dr. Gleason L. Archer wrote, “Bear in mind that inerrancy involves acceptance of and belief in whaterver the Biblical author meant by the words he used. If he meant what he said in a literal way, it is wrong to take it figuratively; but if he meant what he said in a figurative way, it is wrong to take it literally.” Genesis 1 is interpreted literally by many Christians and Genesis 1—and the rest of the Bible—relates an ancient cosmology we know today to be false. Therefore, as Dr. Gleason L. Archer says, “inerrancy involves acceptance of and belief in whaterver the Biblical author meant by the words he used.” The multitude of passages in the Bible that deal with cosmology are often literal because the ancients had a very different, INCORRECT view of the cosmos. I have written at length about this in other places. Sufficed to say, the phenomenological argument and the argument that tries to mask all the references to cosmology as figurative or poetic simply does not work. You, as your Doctor said, have to deal with Genesis 1 and the many other passages about cosmology literally. (Yes, there are some poetic passages, but the “windows of heaven,” “the firmament,” etc. were seen as literal things.)

I have a simple question of Will and any other supposed evangelical errantist reading this thread. Do you accept the Bible’s reportage of the above-mentioned events as true and reliable?
If yes, I will proceed to what I believe is an entirely credible Genesis cosmology and the matter of errant facts.
If you do not accept the Bible’s reporting of the above events as true and reliable, then my point is proven, my task is done, and I shall happily take six weeks off…
Verne

Verne, are you hoping I will say NO so you will not have to deal with Contradiction Three? I accept the Bible at face value unless it is clear I should accept it otherwise. Yes, I believe God can do miracles and has done what the Bible has related. In fact, I accept the Bible as a very accurate history book that opens the doors to the past. So continue if you wish, but know that it will force you to see the many errant references to cosmology in the Bible.

Your challenge:

I invite you to produce any writings of any pre-Eighteenth Century well-known, non-heretic Christian to the contrary...even men like Socinus and Sevetus appealed to Scripture's authority to try and justify heresies....
Verne

I was quite surprised by your post that attempted (like a few other Christian apologist have) to make Luther an inerrantist. He most certainly was not. He thought Job was a fable and that Jonah in the whale was not true. He rejected James, Hebrews, Revelation, Jude as being apostolic and inspired. Sadly, I presently do not have access to my many books I read years ago. Here are some links though:
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ325.HTM
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/preface.html
http://members.aol.com/johnprh/deuterocanonical2.html
I have already given links to the early Church Fathers. None of the early creeds mention Scripture as inerrant. I have already, in past and present readings, seen to my satisfaction that the Princeton Scholars were the first to advocate that the Scriptures were inerrant in matters of science. It is up to you and others who are interested to see for yourself. I never intended to PROVE anything, just plant seeds in the hope that people will study and expand their minds.

Verne, you wrote,

Contrary to your assertions, inerrancy has been the historic position of the Church; they simply called it something else-infallibility. The term inerrancy was coined so there would be absolutely no doubt regarding the sharp contradisctinction between orthodox Christian teaching of the church, and the position being propagated by Will and viewed as heterodox (remember Wellhausen?); Will has it exactly backwards!

Really? I have already shown you Luther did not accept the inerrancy of the Bible as we know it, NOW you back up what you said here. BUT ONLY AFTER YOU DEAL WITH THE THIRD CONTRACTION I BROUGHT UP because we will never arrive at a common understanding of whether the Bible is inerrant or not from simply studying what the Church Fathers or Luther wrote because people interpret their writings very differently. I have read many different books that argue that Luther and Augustine either believed or did not believe the Bible was without error. The books or websites that argued they were inerrantist SELECTIVELY quoted their works and ignored other texts that I have read that show they saw human error in the Bible. SO, we should not waste time studying what others wrote about the Bible but study the Bible to see if it is indeed inerrant. So... Onwards to Contradiction Three...

:)

Verne, :)

I suggest that you only post on one thread because it adds to the impression that your responses have been disjointed due to quoting others at length, questioning me, making comments about my ability to preach the gospel, making challenges, refusing to go on unless I state my belief that the Bible’s history is quite accurate, etc. One thread would be much easier for everyone to follow.

I give you, once again, the issues that you said you would deal with:

(3) How do you explain away all of the errant references to cosmology in Genesis and other books of the Bible? Does the Bible in many places relate an ancient, incorrect view of Cosmology—YES or NO? YES and this is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact! CONTRADICTION NUMBER THREE. (Throw out the “phenomenological” counterargument because it is just an attempt to explain away the fact that the ancients INCORRECTLY described the world as they saw it. It is true that the ancients wrote the Bible according to their perspective on the universe, but what they saw was incorrect and that makes what they wrote incorrect and errant from the standards of modern science AND this makes the Bible errant. Does the Bible in many places relate an ancient, incorrect, PHENOMENOLOGOICAL view of Cosmology—YES! CONTRADICTION NUMBER THREE .)

As far as what cosmology will be the standard, you ask? Just the very basics:
1. The earth rotates and is not immovable or has foundations like the Bible claims in some places.
2. The earth is round NOT flat like the Bible claims in some places.
3. That precipitation is a result of the water cycle of evaporation, etc. NOT God opening the windows of heaven like it says in some places.
4. The sun does not circle the earth. There are passages that describe the sun circling the earth which caused Luther, Calvin and the Catholic Church to disagree with the ideas of a sun-centered universe.
5. The sun normally does not stand still and neither does the earth. If the earth stood still to keep the sun in the sky for a longer period of time it would serious mess up the earth.
6. If (and I say IF) you think heaven is the universe beyond the earth's atmosphere, why do I remember reading that there are winds blowing in the four corners of heaven and heaven is held up by pillars? There is no wind in space and heaven does not have any pillars or corners that I am aware of.
7. The earth and the universe are apparently much older than the Bible indicates.
8. It is not possible to reach heaven where God dwells, but ancients like those who built the Tower of Babel and those who wrote that they saw Jesus ascend to heaven thought that it was possible. Heaven was seen as a real place just above the dome or firmament. So far, the Hubble telescope has not found God's throne--what we moderns interpret metaphorically but what was once thought of as literal just like hell/Hades was and perhaps still is by some.
9. That there are no waters above (e.g., Ps. 104:3, etc.) in heaven or space that can pour of windows/floodgates of heaven.
10. That there is no dome or firmament that holds back the waters above like it claims in Genesis and elsewhere. If this diagram were true (Have a look and click to advance the slide at http://www.siena.edu/tamburello/Cosmology%20of%20Genesis%201.ppt) then the space shuttle would have a hard time orbiting the earth that the ancient writers of the Bible claimed in more than one place was flat, immovable, etc.

Would you want to be treated by a doctor from the 18th 0r 19th Century? No, because they would bleed you to get rid of your bad blood or saw off limbs with bone saws, practices that are clearly outdated in light of our modern world. Would you trust the knowledge of a doctor or scientist thousands of years ago? No, not unless you somehow believed that hundreds of years of scientific advances have made us dumber than the ancients. We know we have made major advances in knowledge in the last one or two hundred years. I have argued (as other writers have demonstrated at length) that the view of the Bible is a 19th Century argument of the Princeton Scholars. However, many Christians hold strongly to this view of the Bible that was alive and well in the time when bones of dinosaurs were still thought by many to be the fabled dragons talked about in legends and myth. This view of the Bible is a fable that is making Christians look like dinosaurs in a modern age.

There are many websites that are clearly showing that the Bible has many apparent and definite contradictions; these websites are concluding that because of these contradictions from a Bible that Christians claim is inerrant, people should not be foolish enough to believe in anything else that Christians say. I have already quoted many examples but here is one last example of how errant cosmology is often appealed to to discredit the Bible:

Is the earth firm and immovable?

I Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."
Psalm 93:1: "Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm..."
Psalm 96:10: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable..."
Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken."
Isaiah 45:18: "...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast..."
http://www.geocities.com/eugenek7/bibleerrors.html

Verne and others have still not dealt directly with the many issues I have brought up concerning errant cosmology in the Bible. I am not surprised in the least by this because to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible one must deal selectively with the Scriptures and ignore blatant contradictions within the Bible or what we know to be true of the universe from modern, scientific observation (e.g., the Genesis 1 universe versus what we know of the universe; the earth is hung on nothing versus the earth is immovable or has foundations; the earth is flat versus the earth is supposedly round, etc.) Verne has quoted at length a Christian scholar who obviously believes in inerrancy and Verne has (to his satisfaction) dealt with a few issues I have brought up. I knew he would not pursue this to its conclusion because it would mean that he admit the Bible is errant in certain matters such as cosmology.

We should not expect ancients to present perfectly accurate views on cosmology because they did not have telescopes, etc. to properly observe things. This does not make them “deceivers” or "wrong" from their limited understanding or even make the Bible any less of a book of divine truth; it simply means the writers wrote according to their cultural understanding that we moderns have come to see was not correct BUT was correct according to their understanding. However, to claim that something is inerrant in matters of science when it most clearly is not leaves Christians open to attack from those who reject religion as superstition. By claiming the Bible is inerrant gives anti-Christian critics something big to “prove” that Christians are crazy for believing what they do. Such a belief in inerrancy asks us to put our faith in ancients who were clearly wrong in how they viewed the world AND such a faith asks us to turn a blind eye to the constant references to this errant cosmology, references that the ancients accepted as facts like the world being flat, immovable, etc. I will say it one last time--to claim the Bible is inerrant discredits Christianity when one clearly examines the facts which I have presented (in this and the Mythology thread) to the best of my ability and knowledge:

FACT: None of the early Creeds or Councils advocated a belief in Scripture as inerrant.
FACT: Believing that the Bible is either errant or inerrant has no bearing on salvation or faith.
FACT: The Bible never claims it is inerrant.
FACT: Jesus or Paul never prophesied that THE WORD OF GOD / BIBLE would come.
FACT: The Bible says the Word of God was Jesus, not a book.
FACT: The Bible communicates the Kerigma or Kerugma: the gospel, the good news of salvation that God loves us and will forgive us.
FACT: This message in the Bible is clear through the human authors’ writing styles, personalities and cultural understanding—cultural understandings according to their knowledge at the time of writing.
FACT: We have learned more about the world since the ancient writers of the Bible penned the Bible.
FACT: The Bible contains ancient references to cosmology, references we know today are outdated and incorrect.
FACT: The Phenomenological argument is an attempt to explain away these archaic references by stating that the writers wrote according to what appeared to be true to them—simply another way of saying that the authors of Scripture wrote incorrect statements because they saw things from a limited perspective.
FACT: Christians have been guilty of selectively choosing certain passages and ignoring others to attempt to sell their views on inerrancy.
FACT: THE BIBLE NEEDS TO BE INTERPRETED so “Truth” cannot be taken directly from it because it must pass through our biases and limited human faculties.
FACT: There is/was a wide range of beliefs about Jesus, the Bible, etc. in past and present Christendom. There are so many views of “The Truth” that it is clear that our version of “The Truth” could very well be wrong.
FACT: Paul and the Early Church Fathers saw Scripture as inspired—Scripture as they understood it because not all of the Bible had been written or assembled together at the time of their writings.
FACT: Early Church Fathers such as Origen and Augustine pointed out human errors in the Scripture in terms of discrepancies in events, genealogies, etc. (I have many links in one of my previous posts so that people may do their own study.)
FACT: The Bible took hundreds of years (leading up to the Council of Nicea in 325 and after) to be assembled into the form we have today. (I have given a good timeline to demonstrate this.)
FACT: Many books, which were widely used by Christians before and after the Council of Nicea, did not make it into the Bible. (I have many links in one of my previous posts.)
FACT: Many books in the Bible such as 2 Peter, Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation almost did not make it into the Bible because not all Christians accepted them as authentic.
FACT: A large majority of scholars today do not accept the authenticity of 2 Peter, Hebrews, etc.
FACT: Luther did not accept James, Hebrews and other books as authentic and divinely inspired.
FACT: Luther and others pointed out human errors or discrepancies in the Bible like some of the early Church Fathers.
FACT: 2 Timothy 3:16f refers to the OT and says God inspires all Scriptures that are profitable for matters of doctrine and morality—i.e., spiritual truth and authority, not inerrancy in matters of modern science.
FACT: All other passages in the Bible that are used to defend inerrancy do not refer to the Bible as we know it.
FACT: Inerrancy is a word that came into being in the early 19th Century.
FACT: The Church has believed in the inspiration of the OT Scriptures since its inception (and hundreds of years later the NT once it was widely accepted), but it was not until the 19th Century—when the word inerrancy came into wide use thanks to the Princeton scholars—that people believed the Bible was inerrant in matters of modern science.
FACT: Inerrancy is a 19th Century theological development that has affected how people view the Bible today.
FACT: Inerrancy is a theological assumption or interpretation, a kind of stretch or extension of inspiration that the Princeton scholars made in an attempt to protect the authority of the Bible in all matters.
FACT: The notion of inerrancy comes from MAN, not God. Christians are to put their trust and faith in God, not in a book.
FACT: The following syllogism is faulty logic based on an assumption of inerrancy: God is perfect and God wrote the Bible; therefore, the Bible is perfect. (This is just one of many manmade assumptions that attempt to justify a belief in inerrancy.)
FACT: There are plenty of times in Scripture, such as the sun standing still or the earth being called flat or immovable, that clearly shows the Bible was written by humans who wrote according to their cultural knowledge, knowledge we know from observation of the cosmos is errant.
FACT: The Bible, in many places, is not inerrant in matters of science because it was written by humans who wrote according to their cultural knowledge, knowledge we know from observation of the cosmos is errant.
FACT: As the link I gave regarding scholars behind the making of the NIV demonstrated, most non-Christians, as well as many Christians now, do not accept the Bible as inerrant.

MY BELIEFS BASED ON THE ABOVE FACTS:
1. It is foolish to teach that the Bible is inerrant in face of the facts that the Bible never claims to be inerrant, that the Bible was not regarded as inerrant until recently, and that the Bible is very clearly not without error in matters of science, particularly cosmology.
2. To teach the Bible is inerrant (as a requirement of faith/salvation or employment/membership at Christian institutions in some cases) hampers the furtherance of the gospel and discredits Christianity in a society that believes the Bible has discrepancies.
3. The Bible being errant in matters of science should not affect the fact that the Bible is still inspired by God and profitable in communicating the message of God—the good news of the gospel.

Verne and others, I rest my case and am more than happy to agree to disagree, knowing you have not dealt with all the issues I have brought forth. But I do find it a bit funny that Verne has called everyone to contend for the faith (as he understands it) and study to show themselves approved yet he has given up on his commitment (either on this thread or the Mythology thread) to clear up the few of many discrepancies I put forward. Regardless, history and observation of human nature shows that people, like old dogs, don’t like learning new tricks. Our beliefs often provide security and will not be easily changed because people like to feel secure… I know I did! We will believe what we want to believe if we consciously or unconsciously refuse to see or believe “truth” beyond the supposed “TRUTH” of our beliefs. But what is more important—our beliefs or reality, i.e., what is really true? The scientific method expects us to hold an initial hypothesis or hold our own beliefs, but we are to constantly examine our beliefs through observation, research, experimentation and be willing to change in the facts prove otherwise.

God help us not to surround ourselves with a kind of comfort zone that provides us with security and “all the answers!” Yes, we walk by faith but not sight BUT that does not mean we should be blind by refusing to look at what might change our beliefs. We see darkly at the moment, but we will be in darkness if we refuse to accept the fact that the light in us could very well be darkness. The truth will set us free only if we keep seeking to have a better understanding of the great puzzle that is reality.

The jury is left to decide and the jury is our own hearts and minds. :)

Take care all! :)

I think there has been a few misunderstandings. :)

Verne, please read my introduction again! :) I was not comparing medince and science--I was simply making a point that our knowledge has advanced significantly over time (and yes it is in a state of flux BUT on the whole is getting better and more accurate through observation, experimentation, etc.). Again, you have attempted to use your misinterpretation of my words to defeat and arguement I never made. You are now about to go off on a tangent about medical issues without dealing with all the facts I presented below and on the Mythology thread. I trust you are not trying to steer the course of conversation away from dealing with the contradictions I have put forth.

It was you who asked for details about contradiction number 3 and I gave you a list of 10 things I could think of and you have still not dealt with all of them so I will quote the list again:

As far as what cosmology will be the standard, you ask? Just the very basics:
1. The earth rotates and is not immovable or has foundations like the Bible claims in some places.
2. The earth is round NOT flat like the Bible claims in some places.
3. That precipitation is a result of the water cycle of evaporation, etc. NOT God opening the windows of heaven like it says in some places.
4. The sun does not circle the earth. There are passages that describe the sun circling the earth which caused Luther, Calvin and the Catholic Church to disagree with the ideas of a sun-centered universe.
5. The sun normally does not stand still and neither does the earth. If the earth stood still to keep the sun in the sky for a longer period of time it would serious mess up the earth.
6. If (and I say IF) you think heaven is the universe beyond the earth's atmosphere, why do I remember reading that there are winds blowing in the four corners of heaven and heaven is held up by pillars? There is no wind in space and heaven does not have any pillars or corners that I am aware of.
7. The earth and the universe are apparently much older than the Bible indicates.
8. It is not possible to reach heaven where God dwells, but ancients like those who built the Tower of Babel and those who wrote that they saw Jesus ascend to heaven thought that it was possible. Heaven was seen as a real place just above the dome or firmament. So far, the Hubble telescope has not found God's throne--what we moderns interpret metaphorically but what was once thought of as literal just like hell/Hades was and perhaps still is by some.
9. That there are no waters above (e.g., Ps. 104:3, etc.) in heaven or space that can pour of windows/floodgates of heaven.
10. That there is no dome or firmament that holds back the waters above like it claims in Genesis and elsewhere. If this diagram were true (Have a look and click to advance the slide at http://www.siena.edu/tamburello/Cosmology%20of%20Genesis%201.ppt) then the space shuttle would have a hard time orbiting the earth that the ancient writers of the Bible claimed in more than one place was flat, immovable, etc.

Yes, Verne, you have quoted at length the very good suggestions of Dr Gleason L Archer concerning how someone should interpret the Bible, but you still have not dealt with all the specific issues I have put forth. I am waiting for you to deal with all the issues before I respond. If I assumed you were finished when you were not then please forgive me. :)

Please let me remind you that it was not my idea to put forth contradictions; it was someone else's idea. I am not interested in trying to be "right" or prove you "wrong" because we all have a different version of "The Truth." To my satisfaction, 10 years ago and again very recently I have come to see that a belief in inerrancy is unsupportable without selectively dealing with the Bible. My agenda in writing on this BB is to stress the need to study, do research from a variety of sources, admit we could be wrong, strive to re-examine our cherished beliefs, etc. So far, nothing you have said in this dialogue has convinced me that any of my points are incorrect. You still have not dealt with the cosmology of Genesis 1 to my satisfaction. However, this idea of "frame of reference" is quite interesting, thanks. :)

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General Discussion => Any and All Topics => : paul hohulin April 09, 2003, 09:09:00 PM