What is "Preponderance of Evidence"?

[Zzyzx]

What is "Preponderance of Evidence"?

If the bible is the "inerrant" or "infallible word of god" ALL of its passages must be accurate and true or it is a fraud. All must represent truth in every detail IF the book is "the word of god".

Nice try. While the Bible may well have been inerrant in it's original manuscripts, that's not to say certain copyist errors have not crept in over the centuries. It's nevertheless perfectly legitimate to base one's belief in God's Word on the preponderance of the evidence that remains. Which is what juries base their decisions on - the preponderance of the evidence.

Is the bible now inerrant or does it contain errors?

If the bible is not inerrant or infallible, how does one decide with certainty what is "god's word" and what is "copyist error"?

Yeah there's a number of copyist errors. But what you miss is redundancy of the important truths in the Bible. You can argue about how many horses there were in a certain passage but horses there were nevertheless. You can argue about the age of an individual but the individual still existed. And you can argue about who saw the resurrected Christ first or how many angels there were at the tomb, but the resurrection itself was not in question. The preponderance of the evidence, Zzyzx.

Does "preponderance of evidence" mean?

My book says so
My book says so
My book says so
My preacher says so
My preacher says so
My preacher says so

Preponderance is defined as: superiority in weight, power, importance, or strength

Evidence is defined as: something that furnishes proof

Strong evidence is that which is drawn from many independent, impartial, verifiable sources. An argument based on a single or narrow source is NOT based on evidence but upon conjecture and opinion.

Give it your one best shot, Easyrider. (To borrow a trite phrase from someone).

[Cathar1950]

Here is a perfectly reasoanable chalenge:

What is "Preponderance of Evidence"?
Preponderance is defined as: superiority in weight, power, importance, or strength...
Evidence is defined as: something that furnishes proof...

Give it your one best shot, Easyrider. (To borrow a trite phrase from someone).

But when the cards are called often this kind of response happens:

I don't think there's any evidence a dedicated Jesus-denier will accept. You've shown your mind is totally closed. There's tons of scholarly works on the historical Jesus from highly educated individuals but you wave your hand and try to make them disappear anyway. So why bother? IMO you can't see the forest for the trees.
So why bother? IMO you can't see the forest for the trees

<chuckle>

He whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Come out of bondage to your false ideas and see the light!

All this convoluted gymnastics is spirited by their beliefs. The stand by it and what they perceive to be the word of God as they interpret it. I think that an apologist cannot be expected to be unbiased and assumptions programming their religious design onto the material as for them they cannot help but identify with it as true,
It is impossible and cant be expected. It is their ongoing battles within not others who have an uncommitted desire to learn. They are usually given labels as best the believer can muster from their heretic stereotypes or dismissed unbeliever.

It seems to me that as look at the evidence we are both the judge and jury.

But in this case I don't think it belongs in a court of law, as there is no evidence.
It is Hearsay at best but stories nonetheless.
The Stories are not documents or the record. The gospels are stories with varied purposes. In this case the gospels cannot be witnesses, as we don't know who they where, when they wrote or call them to the stand. They can't even agree on the witnesses and sometimes they take place in different areas.
I have seen many claims made that they are witnesses historical and factual.
I really don't see how they could be any of those just because of the dependence and lateness coupled with the authors intents.
This seems to me a dead-end and an attempt to avoid dealing with their many problems concerning supernatural elements as they can not show it to be true, possible or logical because by nature is what it means.
It then put the problem as why would these people believe this stuff as they saw it happen? It wanders everywhere avoiding any direct evidence or reasons for anyone to accept it as even resembling evidence.