Scriptural inerrancy and literalism - is it true?

[polonius]

http://www.gty.org/resources/questions/ ... red-by-god

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Theologians speak of inspiration as the mysterious process by which God worked through the authors of Scripture to produce inerrant and divinely authoritative writings. Inspiration is a mystery because Scripture doesn't explain specifically how it occurred.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerran1.htm

Absolute inerrancy: If God controlled the writers' words directly or indirectly, then he would not have led them into error. Deceit and error are not normally attributes expected of God.

Limited inerrancy: the Bible is without error in certain matters such as faith, morals and the criteria for salvation. However, the Bible contains errors when describing other matters, such as scientific observations and historical events.

No inerrancy: They interpret it as containing much legend, myth, historical and scientific inaccuracies, religious propaganda, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism

The term "biblical literalism" is often used as a pejorative to describe or ridicule the interpretative approaches of fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. A 2011 Gallup survey reports, "Three in 10 Americans interpret the Bible literally, saying it is the actual word of God."

[bjs]

PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 1893

Inspiration Incompatible with Error
" For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true."

"Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth.

Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers."


And another writer tells us that:
"The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it, every Chapter of it, every Verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, (where are we to stop?) every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High! "(From Inspiration and Interpretation, 1861).

How many people really believe that statement?

Nearly all Roman Catholics, most forms of Eastern Orthodoxy, and the majority of (but not all) Protestants, as well as Jehovahs Witnesses and Mormons. So, lots of people.

QUESTION: But is any of Revelation to be taken literally? Or is it just a story?

Im not sure what you mean by the word story here. Every written account of events " be it literal or metaphorical, historically accurate or fictional " is a story. Most people who say something is just a story mean that it is fictional, but Revelations could be neither literal nor fictional.

I take the book of Revelations to be largely symbolic (as opposed to literal), but that doesnt mean it is just a story.

[bjs]

[Replying to post 10 by polonius.advice]

You seem to be veering far away from the topic you started in this thread. My short response is that legends do not tend to grow as quickly or in the way that you seem to be suggesting, and I doubt that more accounts would have any effect on how many people believe or reject the claims made in the Gospels. However, since this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, let us leave such discussions for their own thread. We cannot debate every topic in every thread.

[JehovahsWitness]

QUESTION: But is any of Revelation to be taken literally? Or is it just a story?

As Jehovah's Witnesses we believe that John (as introduced in the opening verses of the book) literally existed and that there was indeed a literal Island of Patmos. So yes, some of Revelation is to be taken literally. However, the writer goes on to explain he was given a series of visions, in which information was transmitted by way of many symbols, while perfectly true and accurate, we believe that those features were symolic.

In short, Revelation is highly symbolic, but there are features within the book that are literal.

Jehovah's Witness



Learn more: The book of Revelation, what does it mean?
https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/q ... evelation/

[JehovahsWitness]

Still:

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2004647

Why do Jehovahs Witnesses take the number 144,000 mentioned in the book of Revelation literally and not symbolically?

As I said, there are features within the book that can be taken literally, John, the island, the earth, heaven, angels God, etc. All in my view literal.

For more details on why we (JWs) view the number as literal see my earlier post on this topic.


Further reading
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2004647

[Tomas]

Once one starts to read the actual statements of the New Testament and think about what they actually say, and then start to compare the different gospels and their versions and descriptions it seems surprisingly obvious that the NT is neither inerrant nor literal.
If it was either of those then according to the genealogies of Matthew and Luke there were two separate Josephs, Mary's and Jesus'. They all would agree on who carried the cross, who all watched the crucifixion and from where, how many angels were at the grave and who saw them, and were the women too afraid to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee or not? Just to name a few things.
And if the Bible has errors, obvious ones, can it be regarded as "inspired"?
And if not, then what separates it from other legends?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 15 by Tomas]

I think you can view an errant Scripture as divinely inspired. The Holy Spirit dos not cause a miracle by which we are no longer human and subject to error. The Bible is the result of an interaction between God and humans. Divinely inspired as it may be, the Bible is also the product of a prescientific, semi-barbaric culture and therefore subject to the limitations so imposed by that cultural context. As my Old Testament professor used to say, the Bible is not the Word of God. The Bible is the word of man. The Word of God is revealed through the word of man.

[a better world]

Tomas concluded (in #15):

<<<And if the Bible has errors, obvious ones, can it be regarded as "inspired">>>

The amazing thing is that the early Christian Church father Marcion, only c.100 years after Christ's life, was already grappling with these issues.

As a Christian and a true believer, he was forced (by careful examination) to reject the *entire* Old Testament as being no more than a record of one ancient tribe's trials and tribulations (Israel) governed by an unremittingly cruel God; and of the various texts floating around in his own time, Marcion accepted only Luke out of the four Gospels, and various other New Testament writings (outlined in this link):

http://www.ntcanon.org/Marcion.shtml

It's a tragedy that the new faith founded on "The Prince of Peace", destined to become a world religion (through its later adoption by the Roman Empire), was corrupted from early times by its identification of Jesus with the ancient Hebrew deity - an identification rejected by the Jews themselves!

Marcion's New Testament, as edited by him - now *that* would have been an internally consistent and inspired scripture fit for a new world!

[Tomas]

[Replying to post 17 by a better world]

Wasn't Marcion declared a heretic by the church fathers in 140 AD?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 17 by a better world]

The Trinity, however, is firmly rooted in the NT. Since the Bible is not a work in systematic theology or metaphysics, the actual workings-out of the Trinity are largely extra-biblical in nature. But there is no doubt the concept is rooted in Scripture.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to Tomas]

Yes, Marion was denounced as a heretic. We really know little about him. We have none of his writings. All we know o f him is what his stern critics have to say. How fair they were yet remains to be determined. From sources such as Tertullian, it would appear to be the case Marcion was somewhat of a gnostic. He believed in a hierarchy or kind of totem pole of divine beings, with the one true God at the top, with lesser gods underneath. One of these lesser gods was the OT god, who had some real ego problems, crated the world, over which he governs as a harsh tyrant holding us in bondage by all kinds of rules and regulations. Christ was another lesser god, a shape changer, who could appear in human form, but really isn't human at all. Christ came to free us from the wicked OT god.