The changing face of biblical inerrancy

[polonius]

The term “inerrancy� (or freedom from error) is used more commonly by conservative Protestants than Catholics.

This view was common among Christian clergy until about the mid-1900s when it began to change.. In short, the older belief was that God directly or indirectly controlled the writing of scripture and would not have led the authors of scripture into error since deceit and error were not possible with God.

As Wikipedia summarizes: Biblical inerrancy…. is the doctrine that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching";[1] or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact".[2]

1. Geisler, NL. and Roach, B., Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation, Baker Books, 2012.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b Grudem, Wayne A. (1994). Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-85110-652-6. OCLC 29952151.
But is it so?

[polonius]

Appendix VII - Scripture is Without Error At Vatican II, in its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum in Latin, the Catholic Church reiterated its ancient conviction that Scripture, as God’s written word, could not be at odds with reality, could not deceive: Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Sacred Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures. Thus, “all Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim.3:16)� (DV,11). 316

While I found this interesting, Polonius, not everyone is excited by Dei Verbum. What the Mother Church does as centuries unfold is best left with her maternal self. Errare est humanum, as I'm sure you know, and the gospels are no exception.

RESPONSE:

Scriptural inerrancy is also the position of the Conservative and Evangelical Protestant Churches.

And The Catholic Dei Verbum dates from only 1964 (including the ambiguity which would admit possible error in scripture, because some parts were not inspired after all.)

[JehovahsWitness]

References:
1. Charles Taze Russell, Millennial Dawn (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1902), page 41.

2. Watchtower Magazine (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) October 1, 1967, pages 587 and 590.

Feel free to provide a relevant quotation ("use the little marks to indicated the quoted words" <- they are called "quotation marks") if you feel inclined to support the words below.

Jehovah's Witnesses in practice deny the inspiration and authority of the Bible. Founder Charles Taze Russell taught that man's reason has authority over Scripture.

As it stands, it is an OPINION and one that, as I stated, is inaccurate.


Regards,

JW

[polonius]

References:
1. Charles Taze Russell, Millennial Dawn (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1902), page 41.

2. Watchtower Magazine (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) October 1, 1967, pages 587 and 590.

Feel free to provide a relevant quotation ("use the little marks to indicated the quoted words" <- they are called "quotation marks") if you feel inclined to support the words below.

Jehovah's Witnesses in practice deny the inspiration and authority of the Bible. Founder Charles Taze Russell taught that man's reason has authority over Scripture.

As it stands, it is an OPINION and one that, as I stated, is inaccurate.


Regards,

JW

RESPONSE: I already have in post 6 above. Are you seriously challenging the statement of the JW's founder and the publications of the watch_Tower_Bible_and_Tract_Society_???


http://www.teachingtheword.org/apps/art ... logid=5440

Like all other cults, Jehovah's Witnesses in practice deny the inspiration and authority of the Bible. Founder Charles Taze Russell taught that man's reason has authority over Scripture. Men should "examine the character of the writings claimed as inspired (the Bible) to see whether their teachings correspond with the character we have reasonably imputed to God. Charles Taze Russell, Millennial Dawn (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1902), page 41

See:

Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916), or Pastor Russell, was an American early 20th century Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement.[1][2] After his death, Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups developed from this base.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell


Jehovah's Witnesses teach that their religion is the "sole visible channel" of God in the world, and that the Bible cannot be understood except through the matrix of the pronouncements of the Watchtower Society, which they call God's "visible organization." Watchtower Magazine (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) October 1, 1967, pages 587 and 590.


See: The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania is a non-stock, not-for-profit organization[1] headquartered in the New York City, New York borough of Brooklyn. It is the main legal entity used worldwide by Jehovah's Witnesses to direct, administer and develop doctrines for the religion and is often referred to by members of the religion simply as "the Society". It is the parent organization of a number of Watch Tower subsidiaries, including the Watchtower Society of New York and International Bible Students Association.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Tow ... nnsylvania

Are you claiming that these teachings of the JW founder and the written JW Watchtower Bible and Tract Society are spurious?

Please provide your evidence or we can dismiss your assertion as an assertion without evidence.

Anybody can run a website and not really commit to a societies' written views which the founder and the Watchtower Society wrote.

I suggest that you stick with the documentable facts.

[historia]

Founder Charles Taze Russell taught that man's reason has authority over Scripture.

I don't think anyone who has actually read the writings of Charles Taze Russell could fairly reach this conclusion.

Men should "examine the character of the writings claimed as inspired (the Bible) to see whether their teachings correspond with the character we have reasonably imputed to God."

Charles Taze Russell, Millennial Dawn (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1902), page 41.od.

Nothing in this quote suggests to me that Russell believed that "man's reason has authority over Scripture."

Let's consider the context of Russel's statement here: In this part of Millennial Dawn, he is trying to build a case for the authority of scripture. Rather than merely presupposing that the Bible is divine revelation, however, he begins his analysis from observation and reason. Here's the full quote, in which he is summarizing his findings up to that point:

Having, then, reason to expect a revelation of God's will and plan, and having found that the Bible, which claims to be that revelation, was written by men whose motives we see no reason to impugn, but which, on the contrary, we see reason to approve, let us examine the character of the writings claimed as inspired, to see whether their teachings correspond with the character we have reasonably imputed to God, and whether they bear internal evidence of their truthfulness.

(pg. 41.)

Over the next several pages, he undertakes precisely that examination of the Bible and concludes:

So the depth and power and wisdom and scope of the Bible's testimony convince us that not man, but the Almighty God, is the author of its plans and revelations . . . Succeeding chapters will unfold the various parts of the plan of God, and will, we trust, give ample evidence to every candid mind that the Bible is a divinely inspired revelation.

(pg. 63)

He goes on further to write:

In a thousand ways we have proved the Bible, and know beyond peradventure that it contains a superhuman wisdom which makes its statements unerring.

(pg. 163)

And, specifically, in response to the theory of Evolution he writes:

We would not, then, either oppose or hinder scientific investigation; but in hearing suggestions from students of the Book of Nature [i.e., science], let us carefully compare their deductions, which have so often proved in part or wholly erroneous, with the Book of Divine Revelation, and prove or disprove the teachings of scientists by "the law and the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isa. 8: 20.) An accurate knowledge of both books will prove them to be harmonious; but until we have such knowledge, God's Revelation must take precedence, and must be the standard among the children of God, by which the supposed findings of fallible fellow-men shall be judged.

(pg. 163)

In summary: Russell taught that the Bible was divinely inspired, that God (and not man) was the true author of the text, that it is without error, and when science or human reason seemingly conflict with the Bible, the Bible is the final authority.

I suggest that you stick with the documentable facts.

Sticking to the documents, as I have above, has shown your argument to be baseless.

It is, of course, not your argument. You took it from an evangelical Christian website, whose author has likely never read Millennial Dawn or any other work by Charles Taze Russell either. Rather, that site borrowed this (mid-sentence) quote from Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults.

Once we consider the context of the quote and the totality of Russell's argument, however, we can see that Martin and the website have engaged in little more than quote mining. Russell never taught that "man's reason has authority over Scripture."

You should be more judicious in the sources you use to inform your argument.

[polonius]

Historia posted:

Let's consider the context of Russel's statement here: In this part of Millennial Dawn, he is trying to build a case for the authority of scripture. Rather than merely presupposing that the Bible is divine revelation, however, he begins his analysis from observation and reason. Here's the full quote, in which he is summarizing his findings up to that point:


Russell wrote:

Having, then, reason to expect a revelation of God's will and plan, and having found that the Bible, which claims to be that revelation, was written by men whose motives we see no reason to impugn, but which, on the contrary, we see reason to approve, let us examine the character of the writings claimed as inspired, to see whether their teachings correspond with the character we have reasonably imputed to God, and whether they bear internal evidence of their truthfulness.

(pg. 41.)

Thank you for the more complete quotation of Russell's remarks. In view of the more complete evidence, I retract my post to the contrary. (Good research!)

[polonius]

FROM: http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness3.htm

There are many exceptions where Witnesses deviate from historical conservative Christianity:

They do not believe in the Trinity. Instead, they follow a strict monotheism, in which:

Jehovah is the Supreme Being,

Jesus is the son of God, the first created being, who is separate from Jehovah. Christ is believed to have originally existed in a pre-human state as the Archangel Michael. He later took human form as a man like any other person, except that he was sinless at birth and remained so through life. After his execution, Christ was resurrected as an invisible, non-material, glorious spirit creature. He was enthroned by Jehovah as King and ruler over all creation, and "given all authority in heaven and on earth."

The Holy Ghost is not a separate entity, but is an energy or force -- the method by which God interacts with the world.

Any challenge here? (I agree with a number of these beliefs).

[polonius]

Getting back to the thread's topic on biblical inerrancy, it can be shown by a number of errors, that the belief in scriptural inerrancy is false. Let’s take just one example.

Chicago Statement
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives

And,

Vatican II
19. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven.

However, it can be demonstrated that error exists in scripture in both these claims by applying the principle of contradiction.

Mark’s, Luke’s, and John’s Gospels have Jesus sending for and riding one animal when entering Jerusalem. Matthew’s Gospel, on the other hand, has Jesus sending for an riding two animals (of different sizes) when entering Jerusalem to fulfill an OT prophecy which he interprets as saying the same thing.

So Matthew's account and Mark's, Luke's, and John’s accounts are contradictory.

Therefore, one inerrant historical fact must be in error in supposedly inerrant scripture. (This also shows that Matthew was not an eyewitness).

(We could examine others, but one is sufficient to establish the fact of error in supposedly inspired inerrant scripture).

[JehovahsWitness]

FROM: http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness3.htm

There are many exceptions where Witnesses deviate from historical conservative Christianity:

They do not believe in the Trinity. Instead, they follow a strict monotheism, in which:

Jehovah is the Supreme Being,

Jesus is the son of God, the first created being, who is separate from Jehovah. Christ is believed to have originally existed in a pre-human state as the Archangel Michael. He later took human form as a man like any other person, except that he was sinless at birth and remained so through life. After his execution, Christ was resurrected as an invisible, non-material, glorious spirit creature. He was enthroned by Jehovah as King and ruler over all creation, and "given all authority in heaven and on earth."

The Holy Ghost is not a separate entity, but is an energy or force -- the method by which God interacts with the world.

Any challenge here? (I agree with a number of these beliefs).

No that's pretty accurate (with the possible exception of Jesus being "like any other person") because no other person on earth has ever had a pre-human existence or had the position as such as the "only begotton son of God". But I'm nit-pickng... the quotation is accurate on the whole.



JW

[JehovahsWitness]

Mark’s, Luke’s, and John’s Gospels have Jesus sending for and riding one animal when entering Jerusalem. Matthew’s Gospel, on the other hand, has Jesus sending for an riding two animals.

A contradition only exsists if both statements cannot be true. This would be the case if, for example Mark, Luke and John stated explicity that there were NOT two animals. It is not a contradiction if one narrative simply omittes certain détails which the other includes if both can be true.

If two animals (animal (a) and animal (b) were taken) then it is true that animal (a) was taken and it is ALSO true that animal (a) and (b) were taken. To illustrate:

Statement #1 Mary went to the Post Office
Statement #2 John went to the Post office

Possible reconciation: Both Mary and John went to the Post Office.

Statement #1 Mary went to the Post Office
Statement #2 Only John went to the Post office alone, Mary did not go with him.

Possible Contradiction

CONCLUSION: Matthew chose to include détails that the other writers omitted this cannot reasonably be considered a 'contradiction' since both statements can be true.

QUESTION: Are we to understand Jesus attempted to sit on two donkeys at the same time?

Matthew states that the disciples “brought the donkey and its colt, and they put upon these their outer garments, and he seated himself upon them.� Obviously Jesus didn't attempt to sit on both animals at the same time which would have involved Jesus spreading his legs starfish fashion at a 90° angle. It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus sat on only one (the colt) and that the other accompanied it.

The including of two (or more) parties as the object or the subject of a verb when only one actually performs the action is not unusual even in English. "We drove from New York to Washington when only one person was at the Wheel and drove the others "rode", "John and Sarah came to dinner and we drank a red wine" when Jane said she had a headache and didn't actually have any alcohol at all, and the modern phenonomen of a couple saying "we're pregnant" when only the woman is carrying the child.


JW

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

I think that more or less fits the Jehovah's Witness view of scripture.

Does the fact that the Bible contains very clear and unequivocal errors have any effect on the official position of the Jehovah's Witness group at all? Or do they simply ignore them?