Egyptian Mythology

[Arthur]

Genesis 1:3-5 On the first day, God created light, then separated light and darkness.
Genesis 1:14-19 The sun (which separates night and day) wasn't created until the fourth day.

Sorry, but I found your explanation for the first apparent discrepancy unsatisfactory.  We know that light comes from our sun and distant stars...

Will,
Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God:

"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. "
I John 1:5

[Arthur]

God is great and marvelous, infinite and eternal.  We should not think his Word to be so mean that we, as mere mortals, can fully comprehend it so as to be its judge.  We should study it and try to understand it and learn from God who both wrote it and created us.

Will, in this matter about light, study further and you'll see that your view as set forth in that previous post is limited.  Light does not come only from the sun and stars as "modern science" would tell you.  Mankind thinks he is so smart in all of his observations, experiments and collective knowledge.  But it is to God as a child telling his parents that he's learned to tie his shoe.  

Consider the following verses and tell me what they are saying and what they mean in regards to the topic at hand:

And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.  Rev 21:23

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. Rev 22:5

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

...until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: 15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. I Tim 6:14b-16

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. Acts 9:3

At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. Acts 26:13

And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. Acts 12:7

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.  John 1:1-9

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
John 8:12

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  II Cor 4:6

--
In closing, consider that God is great and we're not.  We should not suppose that we could be in a place of judgement over God or his Word.  We need him and are dependant upon him for everything including our very
lives, "for in him we live, and move, and have our being."


And he[Jesus] said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.   John 8:23

6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.   Isa 55:6-13

[Will Jones]

Arthur,  

Ye do err, not knowing the intent of my writings, nor the purpose of that quotation you criticize:

So Arthur thinks that the light source could be God.  I can accept that to explain the fact that there were no physical sources to produce light until the four day, but many others may not because they will not accept a barrage of quotations simply due to the fact that they don’t regard the Bible as an authority.  The list of contradictions I quoted earlier were not mine—I quoted them as an example of how many websites are stating that the Bible is not inerrant.  These websites take many valid and not so valid contradictions and attempt to discredit Christianity because they think if they can debunk the Bible they can discredit God whom Fundamentalist claim was the author of said book.  THIS is why I have brought up the whole issue of inerrancy.  As Verne wrote,  

If indeed the Bible does contain errors and those of us who contend it does not (original manuscripts) are obstructing some from receiving the message of the gospel, the charge against us is serious in the extreme.

The Bible does contain unscientific errors. Even though Verne feels he has dealt with the first two contradictions I put forth, nobody has dealt with the third contradiction:

(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 .)  

[Will Jones]

Al,

Thanks again for trying to nail down this conversation that appears to be going off on tangents.  Often questions are asked and they are not answered so I felt I should have a go at your two questions.

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?

A.] Seeing as the word “inerrant” did not exist until the early 1800s when the Princeton scholars popularized it, NO is the answer.  Many significant Christians did not accept the Bible as inerrant before Princeton Theology and Fundamentalism advocated inerrancy.  
B.]  Why did the Princeton scholars advocate inerrancy?  They were attempting to preserve the authority of the Bible in the climate of new scientific and scholarly findings/assertions, findings that were different in some cases than what the Bible was saying about creation, the age of the earth, etc.  The dinosaurs, new MSS or lost books of the Bible, new archeological findings, Textual Criticism, evolution, etc. were all grabbing the attention of the public and calling into question the Bible that had never been questioned before because no findings had proved otherwise—except the findings of cosmology that Galileo and others pointed out.  Like the Roman Catholic Church, Luther and Calvin who discounted the notion of Copernicus (the earth orbits then sun) because the Bible said the opposite, the Princeton scholars wrongly tried to claim the Bible was inerrant in all things including modern findings of science when they should have only stated the Bible was the authority in matters of spiritual truth and morality.  Just a decade ago the Roman Catholic Church admitted it erred when it came to Galileo—hundreds of years after that fact.  It is nice to know that someone finally admits that we do not live in a universe that revolves around the sun!  Inerrantists, hopefully in the future, will eat humble pie and admit that they are wrong just as Luther, Calvin and the Roman Church were wrong when they believed the writings of the ancients over what people could plainly see if they just sought to observe.

I say to those who believe in inerrancy:  please open your eyes and observe what is in the Bible!  Don’t just see what you want to believe or were taught to believe!  The Bible has plenty of passages that describe a wrong cosmology; thus, the Bible is not inerrant!  It is as simple as that!  However, holding to the Bible as inerrant—God wrote it instead of simply inspired it like is says in the Bible—will blind you to seeing beyond your own beliefs.  If there is evidence before you, examine it.  Be willing to change if you are proven wrong.

People cannot be told or shown something; they have to see it for themselves.  I cannot communicate over a decade of study on this subject.  I can only give the overall picture as I have attempted to do and hope that others will do their own studies.  Al asked a question that implied a knowledge of history and the early Church Fathers.  Here are some links to start you off:

http://www.cesame-nm.org/Viewpoint/contributions/bible/IIII.html
http://www.cesame-nm.org/Viewpoint/contributions/bible/scholars.html
http://www.cesame-nm.org/Viewpoint/contributions/bible/summary.html
http://www.cesame-nm.org/Viewpoint/contributions/bible/CREATIONSTORIES.html

Early Church Fathers online at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/
You can download 37 volumes of the early Church Fathers at http://www.zeitun-eg.org/

Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John states the following (ignore the footnotes that stick in the text):

5. All Scripture is Gospel; But the Gospels are Distinguished Above Other Scriptures.
Here, however, some one may object, appealing to the notion just put forward of the unfolding of the first fruits last, and may say that the Acts and the letters of the Apostles came after the Gospels, and that this destroys our argument to the effect that the Gospel is the first fruits of all Scripture. To this we must reply that it is the conviction of men who are wise in Christ, who have profited by those epistles which are current, and who see them to be vouched for by the testimonies deposited in the law and the prophets,11 that the apostolic writings are to be pronounced wise and worthy of belief, and that they have great authority, but that they are not on the same level with that "Thus sayeth the Lord Almighty."12 Consider on this point the language of St. Paul. When he declares that13 "Every Scripture is inspired of God and profitable," does he include his own writings? Or does he not include his dictum,14 "I say, and not the Lord," and15 "So I ordain in all the churches," and16 "What things I suffered at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra," and similar things which he writes in virtue of his own authority, and which do not quite possess the character of words flowing from divine inspiration. Must we also show that the old Scripture is not Gospel, since it does not point out the Coming One, but only foretells Him and heralds His coming at a future time; but that all the new Scripture is the Gospel. It not only says as in the beginning of the Gospel,17 "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world; "it also contains many praises of Him, and many of His teachings, on whose account the Gospel is a Gospel. Again, if God set in the Church18 apostles and prophets and evangelists (gospellers), pastors and teachers, we must first enquire what was the office of the evangelist, and mark that it is not only to narrate how the Saviour cured a man who was blind from his birth,19 or raised up a dead man who was already stinking,20 or to state what extraordinary works he wrought; and the office of the evangelist being thus defined, we shall not hesitate to find Gospel in such discourse also as is not narrative but hortatory and intended to strengthen belief in the mission of Jesus; and thus we shall arrive at the position that whatever was written by the Apostles is Gospel. As to this second definition, it might be objected that the Epistles are not entitled "Gospel," and that we are wrong in applying the name of Gospel to the whole of the New Testament. But to this we answer that it happens not unfrequently in Scripture when two or more persons or things are named by the same name, the name attaches itself most significantly to one of those things or persons. Thus the Saviour says,21 "Call no man Master upon the earth; "while the Apostle says that Masters22 have been appointed in the Church. These latter accordingly will not be Masters in the strict sense of the dictum of the Gospel. In the same way the Gospel in the Epistles will not extend to every word of them, when it is compared with the narrative of Jesus' actions and sufferings and discourses. No: the Gospel is the first fruits of all Scripture, and to these first fruits of the Scriptures we devote the first fruits of all those actions of ours which we trust to see turn out as we desire.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-37.htm#P6116_933137

Does it say anywhere that God is the author of Scripture?  Read the early Church Fathers if you like, but you need to decide if the Bible is errant or inerrant for yourself.  However, the facts are clearly weighted against the recent theological claim that the Bible is supposedly inerrant.

[MGov]

MGov,  
Thank you for your private message and I appreciate your prayers.  As I have stressed, people have to decide what they believe abnd what we believe could be wrong if we refuse to honestly examine our beliefs.  I brought this whole issue up not to try to prove something, but to describe what I have seen and how a manmade belief in inerrancy can be a major stumbling block to accepting the gospel.  

I decided to reply on public forum rather than private message (it might save you on online time).  The debate on Biblical inerrancy may never be concluded such that each side could come to an agreement.  So we (you and me) can agree to disagree.  You are right, I do have a bias in my belief that the Bible is inerrant, because I believe that God can do it(ie preserve His word).  I am ecouraged that on the key issues of salvation and a relation with God, we see eye to eye (though I have not read all of your posts completely).  I hope we can continue to communicate with each other.

God bless,
MG

[Will Jones]

Verne,

Over the next several days, I will provide a summary of the competing views on the nature of the cosmology presented in Genesis.

 Great, brother!  But Genesis is just a small portion of the Bible that makes constant references to errant cosmology.  

If you care to be very specific about what exactly are the "unscientific" aspects of the cosmology you so frequently refer to as being present in Genesis I will be happy to respond. I speak the language of science. So far, your contention regarding unscientific statements in the biblical record have been vague at best. Please be specific.

Verne, I have been quite specific and even given you some links with a nice diagram.    I'll repeat myself again from my many posts to make your study easier:

Cosmology was one of the first things that I stated disproved inerrancy.  For ancients who wrote the Bible and other extra-Biblical works, the world was often seen as flat and immovable: “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved” (Psalms 104:5).  Read all of Psalm 104, especially verses 5-9, and this is very similar to the creation story of Genesis 1 and the ancients’ view of the way the world was.  (Cf. Psalms 93:1; 1 Chronicles 16:30; Joshua 10:12)  An immovable earth is just one of many examples of an incorrect, ancient cosmology that is depicted in the Bible.  Others include the sun standing still, sun circling the earth, earth that has a dome over it that keeps the waters in heaven back, heaven held up with pillars, windows of heaven opening, winds blowing in the four corners of heaven, God dwelling in a universal heaven, the Tower of Babel trying to reach to heaven, Jesus ascending into that heaven or place where God has a throne, age of the earth/universe, etc.

(1) There are plenty of concepts that I mentioned above like the sun standing still where the cosmological conceptions of the past do not jive with what we know through scientific observation, etc.  This blows your earlier statement out of the water!  The people who wrote the Bible under the inspiration of God wrote according to the knowledge they had at the time, knowledge we now know to be incorrect.

(2) That the Bible contains literal, absolute statements that do not jive with scientific possibility.  One example, where did all the water come from in Genesis 7:19 if Mount Everest was also covered?  For more examples, contrast the two Genesis creation stories like one poster has already done on this thread.

(3) Jesus in one of the synoptic gospels stated very clearly that the mustard seed is the smallest seed on earth.  He was speaking in the context of what people knew at the time, but there are smaller seeds than a mustard seed.  Does that mean Jesus was wrong or not the Word made flesh?  No, he spoke to people OF THAT TIME ACCORDING TO THEIR CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING.  We are no longer living in the same time or culture that the Bible was written and we need to take that into consideration.  That is how we need to interpret the Bible, not as a book of science and history, but as a book that can tell us what we should believe about the God of love and how we should live.

But, in some parts of the Bible as I have mentioned, the ancients did not understand this concept and even thought of the earth as immovable and flat.  Here is an interesting article you might want to read later:   http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm.  Therefore, Genesis 1 does not match up with what we presently know of science due to the fact that a day appears without the sun and, 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.  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.  

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.

This will get you started.  Here is another interesting link:  http://www.religioustolerance.org/cosmo_bibl3.htm  
There are some neat webpages out there like http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_03_03_01.html that attempts to deal with ONLY SOME of the issues SELECTIVELY!  At least they admit, "It must be admitted outright that SOME of the items listed here COULD be interpreted as giving a false cosmology - but it is also possible to interpret them other ways."  But, they have not even begun to examine all the issues that I have listed above.  As I said before,

Christian apologists selectively pick apparent contradictions, explain them, and then claim that the Bible has no contradictions.  I have also seen tracts and websites that claim the Bible in Isaiah says the earth is round and then claims that the Bible is ahead of its time and never makes an incorrect scientific statement.  However, there are plenty of other passages in the Bible that reveal the people who wrote the Bible DID in fact make many unscientific statements.  Now, Christian apologists tried to explain them away by the “phenomenological argument,” that the writers were just writing according to what appeared to be true to them.  Well, it was not true—their cultural understanding of cosmology was wrong; thus, the Bible is not inerrant in matters of science because so many unscientific views are expressed as accepted fact.  

I hope Verne, you will not be guilty of selectively dealing with issues as many Conservative Christian apologists are.  Your faith should be in the goodness of God, not in a book written by men.  The Bible communicates spiritual truth, not perfect science.

Take care, brother.  

[Will Jones]

Verne,  

I stated my purpose in bringing this whole issue up was to describe the possible dangers to those who might believe but are kept away by the manmade belief in inerrancy.

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.  

You replied,

In my humble opinion, this is the most important thing that Will Jones has ever posted on the BB. He is absolutely right on this score. If indeed the Bible does contain errors and those of us who contend it does not (original manuscripts) are obstructing some from receiving the message of the gospel, the charge against us is serious in the extreme.

Now you are saying that a belief that the Bible is not inerrant--i.e., not perfect in matters of modern science--will take away my authority to preach the gospel???  Again, Verne, you are trying to (intentionally or unintentionally) make me look silly by thinking / preaching the gospel for me in the example that you gave below.  I have asked you to stop doing that, brother.    But, following your example, I would not want to dare to add to your words:  "Your view of the Bible has in my view nullified your authority to preach to anyone [who refuses to have anything to do with individuals who think the Bible is a kind of magical book or THE TRUTH for all of mankind] that Christ died for their sins."

How do I preach the gospel?  Not as you have stated!  

There are many ways you can approach someone.  In conversation, you can bring up the Bible and see what they beleive about the Bible.  The common response is it is just a book written by humans and it has mistakes.
(1) I say, "I agree."  This surprises people like you would not believe!  "Really?" they say.  I can talk quickly about how certain points of cosmology are incorrect because the authors wrote according to their cultural knowledge, "but the Bible has successfully communicated the message God wants us to hear."  Then I continue....
OR
(2) After they say the Bible is just a work of man, I say, "I agree in a way, but I believe in the message of the Bible and the fact that my life and so many others have been changed by the goodnews the Bible communicates."  This usually gives me an open door to continue.  
OR
(3) Because most people get immeadietly turned off to black-and-white thinkers in this grey world, I start off and say I just want to talk to them about their views and see how the conversation developes and work in the gospel that way.  People nowadays respond better to people who respect them and their ideas instead of just being told they need to beleive a kind of magic book or they are hellbound.

If people refuse to accept the gospel because they can't accept that Bible is inerrant when it is certainly not in matters of cosmology, etc. Conservative Christians have to admit that souls will be lost due to the manmade belief in inerrancy.  That is why I brought this whole issue up.

But, Verne, there is more than one way to reach out to people.  The fact that you were so bold to say that I could not be an effective witness to God's love due to my belief that the Bible is not perfect in matters of science is quite unfair.  You are stating in a sense that unless I believe what you do I will be ineffective.  

We--like MGov--will have to agree to disagree.     I have enjoyed our dialogue and I look forward to reading your response/attempt to deal with Contradiction Three.  I don't really know what more I can say apart from what I have already said.  I look forward to your many responses to attempt to deal with the errant cosmology of the Bible.  

If indeed the Bible does contain errors and those of us who contend it does not (original manuscripts) are obstructing some from receiving the message of the gospel, the charge against us is serious in the extreme.

[Mark C.]

Dear Will
  I have not had much to say regarding this thread as there are those who are more capable than I in discussing it.  Verne, Arthur, and Tom have the intellecutal skills necessary to argue these points better than I and I have found their answers very reasonable.
  I don't wish to argue the pros and cons of innerancy, but the concern that you have that souls are kept from Christ due to Christians who insist on the view of innerancy.
   I have asked you before several times, and possibly you missed my posts, but what do you believe the Gospel is?     You have stated that the Bible is full of contradictions and errors in science and history, but the message of salvation managed to arrive intact; my question is: what arrived?
  Modern man has the same need that ancient man had, and the Gospel can meet that need.  Ancient rejectors of the Gospel came up with their reasons for rejection and modern rejectors will always be able to justify their refusal to accept salvation through Christ alone.
   If Christians were to adopt a more liberal stance and present an errant Bible to the modern educated individual, in hopes of getting the Gospel to them, the individual approached would still be able to rationalize a rejection.
   In the Book, "God and the Astromers" by Rober Jastrow (an agnostic) he demonstrates how modern astromers "reacted" to their new understanding of the cosmos.  Prior to the "Big Bang" theory the standard view was the "steady state" of the universe.  These researchers (Einstein etc.) didn't like what they were seeing because it seemed to point to the idea that there was a point in time when the universe was created.  This troubled them because it might mean that there was a God who they were morally responsible to.
   The problem with reception of the Gospel is not the lack of a clever means to market it, but the natural disposition of man to reject the reality of a holy God and any accountability to Him.
  Billy Graham has done just fine in preaching the simple Gospel message to this modern world.  The Holy Spirit can reach the brightest thinkers of the past and present(as exemplified in C.S. Lewis, etc.) and inspite of the many doubts the individual may have.  God meets the soul, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and brings conviction at a basic level of man's heart.  God addresses the innate understanding, within every heart, that He exists and that we are sinners.
  If we start our Gospel presentation with discussing how unreliable the Bible is we only reinforce the natural tendency of the fallen heart to excuse it's self from the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
   I wish that you would give the same great amount of energy that you expend on finding error in the Bible to proclaiming the great light and hope that can be found therin.  We've heard your view on errancy in Scripture, now let's hear a reason to believe the Gospel.  Let's hear how those hurt in the abusive Assembly system can find grace to heal and have strong faith in the one true God.
 I would rather be a fight'n Fundie, who preached a clear Gospel, than a intellectual Neo who can only give reasons to find errors in the Bible.
                               God Bless,  Mark
 

[al Hartman]

     Just a note of comment on the three passages Verne has presented, below:

     The clear message is that there is a definite relationship between the Gospel and the people to whom it is preached,
AND that relationship is NOT determined by the manner or method by which we may present it.

     Are we clear about WHAT the Gospel is?  It is the Good News-- the Truth about Jesus Christ:  Who He is, and what He's done, and how God the Father has honored it.  How far shall we break it down?  How much are you willing to hear?
     He loved us from the foundation of the world, long before we were formed or drew breath.  For us, He took upon Himself human form, being born in a humble stable.  He grew up into adulthood in the limiting surroundings of humanity.  He ministered to the multitudes, enduring all form of misunderstanding and mockery.  He endured temptation for our sakes, and he suffered the limitations of human flesh, even though He was entitled to all the privileges of heaven.
     He allowed His own betrayal, permitted himself to be falsely accused and judged guilty, all for our redemption.  He suffered humiliation, savage torture and painful death on the cross, at the hands of those to whom He had come to offer salvation.  When He died, God tore in half, from top to bottom, the great curtain that had separated the holiness of Almighty God from the eyes of common man.  
     After the prescribed period of death, He arose from His grave, alive, and appeared to many witnesses, in whose presence He ascended to heaven to be seated at the right hand of God the Father, to reign over all creation, and He carried us there with Him.  We are seated with Christ in heavenly places, and now no one and nothing can separate us from the love of Him in whom we live and move and have our being.
     THIS is the Gospel, in extremely abbreviated form.

     i say again, the manner in which we present this message has NOTHING to do with its effectiveness.  The first time i heard the Gospel was from the mouth of an unshaven, raggedly dressed man who smelled like he hadn't bathed for a week or more.  HE repulsed me, but the message from the heart of God was undampened.
     The Gospel has a power of its own.  i don't say we should deliberately shroud the message or obscure it to prove its power.  No-- it is a glorious message, worthy of great respect and fanfare.  But our embellishments, in any form, add nothing to it!!!
     God Himself blinds the eyes of the lost & perishing to the glorious Gospel of His Son, because their rejection of Him makes them unworthy of Him.  This is a matter between the hearts of men and their Creator.  You or i may be a golden goblet or a paper cup; it is the Wine we carry that has all the power to deliver from sin.

     Reread those three passages Verne gave us, and see if these things are not so!

al Hartman

[Will Jones]

Al,

Great post, brother!  Very clear!  

[Will Jones]

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...

[Will Jones]

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.  Please only post on one thread to make it easier for others to follow.  

I give you 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.

I look forward to reading your replies.  

[Will Jones]

********************************
NOTE TO THE READERS OF THIS THREAD:
Many, many posts have been deleted!

I was looking forward to reading Verne's replies to the Biblical discrepancies I put forth, but, after waiting three years, instead of dealing with the issues that Verne had promised to tackle, he abandoned this debate and deleted all of his posts on this thread without giving any explanation.  (He admits to deleting his posts in the “Danger: History and Science in the Bible” thread.)  Therefore, there are many holes in this thread due to the fact that the man who posts as “VerneCarty” ran away from a debate that was good natured on my part. Until Verne offers an explanation, I interpret Verne's act of deletion as a way to erase how the tone of his posts and the content of his posts detracted from his attempt to argue his view.  Nevertheless, I have quoted him at length in my own replies so the overall flow of the thread is hopefully not lost.  I have said what I felt I needed to say, but it is sad that Verne abandoned what was a good debate without giving so much as an explanation.  So far, nobody has successfully dealt at length with the discrepancies and issues I have raised.

[Oscar]

Will,

Regarding your belief that the Bible merely repeats the cosmologies of the ancient near east.   I wrote a paper answering that charge a few years back.  It is available on line at:

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/other_papers/tom_maddux_the_three_story_universe.pdf


There is much more that could be said on the subject that I said in that paper. It had to be kept fairly short.

Blessings,

Thomas Maddux