How can we determine which parts of Scripture are true?

[Zelduck]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

[mwtech]

The only way for you to personally decide what the Bible really means is for you to personally read the whole thing yourself. My poor mother has been to just about every kind of denominational church in my town and finally decided to read the Bible for herself. She uses the hebrew lexicon on Biblehub.com to determine the exact context of any word she wonders about, and she has probably 10 boxes full of study notes from her past 3 years of studying. She still has new theories contradicting what she has been taught at church every little while. Now, she has come to the conclusion that there is not a single church that teaches what she thinks the Bible actually says.
Now, I am an atheist, and I do think the Bible was entirely fabricated by human minds, but it is reasonable to assume that these authors did have an intended meaning they wanted readers to come to. I respect someone who will read the thing and figure it out for themselves much more than someone who just trusts what their pastor, or Joel Osteen or John Hagee tells them it means.

And when it comes to the Holy Spirit leading somebody, there is no reason for you to come to any conclusion other than that they are delusional. I don't mean to be harsh, but when a believer feels strongly about anything religious, they will claim it is because the Holy Spirit told them so. They will say this about one thing, and then about something completely opposite a few months later. The Holy Sprirt "tells" one person one thing and the next another. It is my opinion, and I can see no way to think anything else, that believers just don't know how else to interpret their convictions that they arrived upon by completely natural thought processes than to claim it was some divine revelation.

[dianaiad]

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history.

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

This question -- or ones very much like it -- comes up occasionally on this forum, and I have to confess that I find it quite odd. It seems to me that the answer is obvious and, in this case, hidden only by the use of the passive voice in your second sentence above.

Who has accepted and rejected various books? The answer is the Christian community has made that decision. A canon is defined by a community of believers; it is not up to an individual to determine what texts are authoritative or not for the community. Rather, if you are part of a religious community, you in turn accept the texts as authoritative.

I don't mean to belittle the question, but it seems to me that this query can only arise from a kind of hyper-Protestant view of scripture that assumes that the Bible somehow exists independent of any community of believers, and therefore can in some way be "objectively" measured for it's "inspiration." The books of the Bible were written by Christians, to Christians, for use within the Christian community, and they are authoritative for Christians because the community has, through a long period of consensus building, deemed them to be so.

This is, indeed, a good and succinct answer...and it works well. The problem is, though, that it only works well once an individual has come to believe that his community of believers is right about its choices. Then, of course, there is the individual study involved....

Since we are talking about scripture (the bible, in this case, but I accept more than the bible to be scripture; one of those 'community of believers' things you are referring to), it would be fair to refer to scripture to see if there is anything within it that would apply.

After all, it's logical to refer to the instructions of an experiment in order to perform it; the test is whether the end results of any experiment are what the instructions claim they will be, right?

In the NT, we are told that if we have any questions, we should ask God about them.

James 1:5 (KJV)

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

OK, but as has been pointed out, many ask, and seem to get very different answers. I think that any scientist could tell you that this is understandable; the parameters of the experiment are far too broad.

HOW do you ask?
WHO do you ask?
WHEN do you ask?
WHAT do you ask?

Are you sure that you are getting the answer to the question you thought you asked? Are you interpreting your answer correctly? Are you expanding that answer further than you should?

For instance, suppose you ask "God, in the Ten Commandments, is it "Thou shalt not kill," or "Thou shalt not commit murder?" (the two concepts being rather different)

Suppose you get the answer (Thou shalt not commit murder)...and you take that and assume that your interpretation of the entirety of the Ten Commandments...and the bible...is the correct one, even though your answer was very specific to the question asked.

I find that sort of thing happens all the time; a sort of reverse 'taking out of context." One takes an answer to a specific question and inserts it into a context in which it doesn't really fit.

Now, since we are not assuming that the bible is true, we can continue not assuming that the Book of Mormon is true, and I'll use another set of instructions for this sort of thing:

Moroni 10:3-5

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

Please notice the three things required:

Read: you know, read, study, do the research.
Ponder: think about it, come to your own conclusions. Test them. Read some more.
Pray: Ask God if you are on the right track. Ask for help. Ask for guidance. Ask for confirmation.

What you do NOT do is 'happen to hear" about some weird thing and expect an answer if all you do is pray about it. If you don't do your own work, why should God do it for you?

After all, HE isn't the One who needs to know and understand this stuff. We do.

And, in my opinion, we need to put that work in. We need to do the studying. We need to do the research, and we need to know exactly what it is we are praying about when we do ask.

Vague questions will get vague answers, and if everybody interprets that answer differently, what can you expect?

That's my opinion. I won't argue about it...I just thought that this thread, so populated by folks who do not believe, should hear from more than one person who does.

[Divine Insight]

The Holy Sprirt "tells" one person one thing and the next another. It is my opinion, and I can see no way to think anything else, that believers just don't know how else to interpret their convictions that they arrived upon by completely natural thought processes than to claim it was some divine revelation.

This is an interesting observation. Moreover we know that this is true today. We see many individuals saying totally different things, all of whom proclaim that they have been given divine revelation.

But what does this ultimately tell us? It tells us that this is human nature. It's natural for humans to proclaim that they are being given divine revelations. So guess what? This would also apply to the men who created the Biblical stories. They too believed that they were being given divine revelations.

So it should come as no surprise at all that humans would create stories like we see in the bible. It's human nature to create these delusions.

[historia]

If the Christian community decided, was it in a democratic fashion, or was it a subset of the community who decided for the rest, or some other way I'm not thinking of?

As Bart Ehrman notes, "The canon of the New Testament was ratified by widespread consensus rather than by official proclamation." Lost Christianities (2005), pg. 231.

No individual (e.g., the pope or emperor) or council ever decided officially for all Christians which texts should be part of the New Testament and which should not. Rather, after centuries of using and reading various early Christian writings, the (orthodox) churches simply came to a consensus that certain texts should be deemed canonical.

There are some early Christian authors, such as Eusebius, Athanasius, and Augustine, who give us their opinions on the matter. But they are also quite keen to point out which books were acknowledged as authoritative by all of the churches in their day, which books were disputed, and which were deemed apocryphal. In other words, they were chiefly concerned with the consensus of the community, rather than their own preferences.

Likewise, several fourth century councils, including those at Hippo and Carthage, set out canonical lists, but much like the authors above, they simply affirmed those texts that were already recognized by all (or most) churches, rather than defined the canon as such.

Maybe the answer is in this long period of consensus building you mentioned. How did that work? For example, how did I get the Gospel of Luke in my Bible but not Clement I?

To put it in somewhat simplistic terms, I would say the process was essentially one of tradition and peer pressure.

"Tradition" in the sense that texts that could be traced back to the early leadership of the community (i.e., the apostles or close companions of the apostles) held great authority for many churches. Some texts, like the gospels and the Pauline epistles, had been widely used among a large number of churches from very early on, and so were quickly accepted as authoritative. Other texts, like 2 Peter, Revelation, Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas, were not as widely used, and so were looked at with greater suspicion.

But, over time, various churches decided to drop their preferences for, or objections to, some of these texts in order to bring themselves into alignment with the majority -- hence "peer pressure." That was a long process: it took a good three or four centuries to finally shake out. But, by the 5th Century AD, the New Testament as we know it today was, and continues to be, universally recognized by all Christians.

[Joab]

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history.

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

This question -- or ones very much like it -- comes up occasionally on this forum, and I have to confess that I find it quite odd. It seems to me that the answer is obvious and, in this case, hidden only by the use of the passive voice in your second sentence above.

Who has accepted and rejected various books? The answer is the Christian community has made that decision. A canon is defined by a community of believers; it is not up to an individual to determine what texts are authoritative or not for the community. Rather, if you are part of a religious community, you in turn accept the texts as authoritative.

I don't mean to belittle the question, but it seems to me that this query can only arise from a kind of hyper-Protestant view of scripture that assumes that the Bible somehow exists independent of any community of believers, and therefore can in some way be "objectively" measured for it's "inspiration." The books of the Bible were written by Christians, to Christians, for use within the Christian community, and they are authoritative for Christians because the community has, through a long period of consensus building, deemed them to be so.

Is there any claim that the "christian community" were inspired to produce the canon of christianity?
I have never seen that claim made.
What I have seen is the claim all of the books claimed by the community to be canon have been declared by that same community to be inspired.
It seems to me that the community have DECLARED what books are inspired of god, in other words it is a decision of man and not god.

[connermt]

"Truth" in this case is in the eye of the believer. The bible isn't a math book (even the bible's gospels don't sync-up with each other totally), so what it says needs to be taken in, internalized and processed with one's own need demands. Meaning, what's true to Bob may not be true to Mary.
Is there any truth to the scriptures? Only in the sense that the scriptures are sentences in a story in a book. Other than that, what ones picks out as 'true' depends on the individual from my experience.

[ThePainefulTruth]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

If you find one contradiction, one part that isn't trustworthy or is doubtful, then the whole thing must at least be shelved if not rejected outright. How can the infallible Word of God have any errors?

[dianaiad]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

If you find one contradiction, one part that isn't trustworthy or is doubtful, then the whole thing must at least be shelved if not rejected outright. How can the infallible Word of God have any errors?

It can't. Of course you are begging the question here. Not EVERY bible believer considers the bible that they read to be the 'infallible Word of God.'

We consider it to be the Word of God as given us by fallible men who filtered it through their own experiences and knowledge, and is, therefore, quite fallible.

Even those who claim that the bible is absolutely the infallible Word of God, when you drill 'em down to it, have to add 'in the original' to that statement...and we don't any of us have that.

[ThePainefulTruth]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

If you find one contradiction, one part that isn't trustworthy or is doubtful, then the whole thing must at least be shelved if not rejected outright. How can the infallible Word of God have any errors?

It can't. Of course you are begging the question here. Not EVERY bible believer considers the bible that they read to be the 'infallible Word of God.'

We consider it to be the Word of God as given us by fallible men who filtered it through their own experiences and knowledge, and is, therefore, quite fallible.

Even those who claim that the bible is absolutely the infallible Word of God, when you drill 'em down to it, have to add 'in the original' to that statement...and we don't any of us have that.

The Word of God transmitted by fallible men making it fallible--and who may have (certainly ) even lied when they claimed they had the word of God. IOW it's all 2000+ year old hearsay on which Christians want to base their faith. If God created us, certainly It gave us reason...for a reason.

[dianaiad]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

If you find one contradiction, one part that isn't trustworthy or is doubtful, then the whole thing must at least be shelved if not rejected outright. How can the infallible Word of God have any errors?

It can't. Of course you are begging the question here. Not EVERY bible believer considers the bible that they read to be the 'infallible Word of God.'

We consider it to be the Word of God as given us by fallible men who filtered it through their own experiences and knowledge, and is, therefore, quite fallible.

Even those who claim that the bible is absolutely the infallible Word of God, when you drill 'em down to it, have to add 'in the original' to that statement...and we don't any of us have that.

The Word of God transmitted by fallible men making it fallible--and who may have (certainly ) even lied when they claimed they had the word of God. IOW it's all 2000+ year old hearsay on which Christians want to base their faith. If God created us, certainly It gave us reason...for a reason.

There is no 'certainly' involved with their "may have lied" when they claimed to have the Word of God. Their fallibility...writing things down according to their own understanding, cultural expectations and knowledge...does not equate to 'they were lying.'

It simply means that we, as readers, need to figure out the 'filters' they were using so that we can understand what they were saying.

Unless, of course, you think that anybody who doesn't use your vernacular, or explain things precisely the way you would, or understand the world in the way you do is deliberately lying when they make a claim you don't agree with?

That everybody older than you, or who lives in a different culture, speaks a different language, or sees the world through a different set of ethics is deliberately lying when they say something you don't like?