How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

[otseng]

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:

How can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

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Thread Milestones

• Case study of Hezekiah
• Start discussing global flood / Flood Model summary
• Recap arguments of authority of the Bible
• Start discussing Tower of Babel / Tower of Babel summary
• Start discussing archaeology / Philosophy of science / Origin of alphabet / End of discussion on archaeology
• Start discussing cosmology / Concluding cosmology
• Start discussing Shroud of Turin / Summary top TS imaging theories / Created DefendingChristianity.com and TS subforums / Shroud of Turin summary
• Start discussing Bible and resurrection
• Start discussing the Messiahship of Jesus / Messiahship of Jesus wrap up
• Start discussing Old Testament ethics
• Summary argument of atheism and morality / God basis for objective morality
• Start discussing genocide / Genocide summary argument
• Start discussing slavery / Slavery summary argument
• Start discussing homosexuality / Homosexuality summary argument
• Old Testament ethics summary argument
• Start discussing philosophy / Summary argument on philosophy
• Start discussing creation of universe / Summary argument universe was created

[otseng]

[1]So the very God who created the homosexual has no problem with denying that person sexual intimacy?

God created the first man and woman. We see the original design and intent in this creation.

All other people are born from natural parents and are not directly created by God. All people since Adam and Eve were born with the inclination for sin, have a fallen nature, and have genetic defects.

[2] Why cite the Bible as authority for your argument? The Bible is specifically excluded as authority in C & A.

I'm not citing the Bible as "authority". I'm citing the Bible in the discussion on OT ethics because it is the skeptics that are making the charges against the OT. I'm simply citing the passages in question.

In such a case, would you agree there is no moral reason to prohibit that example of homosexual relations?

Really the only thing I'm doing is defending the passages that the skeptics attack. If there are other sexual practices prohibited in the Bible, we can cover those.

What these people are saying is that "YOU should not enjoy the pleasure of sexual intimacy just because I think it is 'icky' or wrong and because my god tells me so. I need no other reason."

As far as the Leviticus passages go, I believe it is specifically referring to anal sex.

[POI]

(U) I've already explained the difference between authority and might (power). If you claim they are equivalent, then produce your evidence.

POI Post 3946 -> "Might" means - All powerful, cannot be overridden, creates. I also explained in post 3929. Your usage and my usage are the same.

(U) Equivocation is not a very minor technicality. And especially if you claim that I said those things.

POI I've explained, twice, why I am not using "equivocation"; both in my last response, as well as post 3929. The readers can see this. You are placing a rubberstamp on my response, so you do not have to address my response.

(U) To summarize my position, what makes something right is authority, not necessarily might or power. Since God is ultimately the highest authority, then what God dictates is right.

POI A supreme court judge, in the secular realm, is the highest authority within the law. I guess this also means what the supreme court judge dictates, is right Please go back to my defitnion of 'might'.

(U) This doesn't work either because it means all morals are then subjective.

POI As we trek back to the last topic, I've already explained ad nauseum. You can assign a 'moral' attribution to the topic of economics as well. (i.e.) He's rich, he's poor. What IS rich vs. poor? Rhetorical question...

I guess this means we need to assign a supernatural agency to correctly objectify economics too I guess the entire subject of economics is subjective. Just tell the economics professor this...

(U) I'll let readers decide who is the one being illogical that I can't use religious sources and argumentation and I can't use secular sources and argumentation.

POI I'll instead sum up your position. You either choose:

a) Because god says so (arbitrary - explained in video 1)
b) Other reason(s), (which you already attempted to do, which demonstrates no further need for God at all)

(U) No, we are not speaking of the same thing.

POI Yes we are. Does God approve or disapprove of a man having intercourse with another man? It's really this simple. The Bible indicates that God is not okay with this action. This is what I'm talking about.

(U) I'm talking about the distinction between male and male sex and gay sex.

POI Please see directly above.

(U) And I'm arguing the modern concept of homosexuality (and homophobia) did not really exist in the past.

POI None of the ancients thought male on male sex was icky, and decided to write "God pronouncements" about it?

Hint:

God has a nature
God's nature is that he does not like male-on-male action
God gives humans his nature
Therefore, we do not like male-on-male action either.

An ancient decided to write this fun fact down to paper, as God's law.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #3967

I’ve read ancient creation accounts and can answer your question but these weren’t religious pieces.

The gods who appear in ancient creation accounts were believed in by ancient peoples.

[Mae von H]

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

How? Out of perceived necessity. It's obviously not inerrant, as anyone who's read it without prior indoctrination can see; as I understand it that notion was a relatively recent invention in reaction to modernism, liberalism and progress in the sciences and literary criticism. Ancient religious folk who were literate and reasonably intelligent could obviously see various problems with the traditional Writings of their culture, but there's also a bit of a problem with believing in a God who offers no revelation or guidance whatsoever! The rationalization offered in Deuteronomy 18 is that if God spoke to the people directly they would surely die, so therefore his message had to come through human intermediaries. One of the qualifications offered is that if the message was not true it couldn't be from Yahweh, but obviously that little detail got swept under rug sometime before the canonization of (perhaps the most brazen example of obviously false prophecy in the Tanakh) Ezekiel.

In a different but even more problematic vein, the earliest Christians started to insist that now, finally, they were all being filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore God could and would speak to them all directly as promised regarding the 'new covenant' of Jeremiah 34. But evidently and in the end obviously, that hasn't turned out to be the case and Christians soon found that despite Paul's insistence that "we serve in the new way of the Spirit not in the old way of the written code" and "the letter kills but the Spirit gives life," they actually still did need the Writings to make sure that at least some of them were at least vaguely on the same page theologically. The Spirit just wasn't doing the job. And that's okay; if their religion was helping them get through their lives as decent people, and the bible was the best they had to help them out with that, more power to them. If they'd paid a little more attention to it, maybe we never would have got the Roman Catholic Church

So basically the attitude would be that "God must be guiding us, and this is the best we've got - contradictions, false prophecies and all - so we've got to treat it as God's guidance and make the most of it." And at times that could directly or indirectly be a very productive attitude: The proverbial tendency within rabbinic Judaism of analyzing, reinterpreting and endlessly debating the Tanakh and Talmud has surely been one of if not the major contributors to a cultural climate which has produced an astonishingly disproportionate number of Nobel laureates. In a slightly different vein the Protestant emphasis on the bible and personal religious accountability may have been a major cause behind about half of the spread of democracy around the world: "A brief version of Woodberry’s theoretical argument goes as follows: conversionary Protestants wanted ordinary people to be i) able to read the Bible and ii) actively involved in their church. Yet in their attempts to spread their faith, conversionary Protestants were in effect facilitating the spread of mass education, mass printing, and civil society. These byproducts of religious activism in turn led to the emergence of actors and conditions favorable to democracy: civic associations, political parties, religious liberties, and mass political participation. Hence, according to Woodberry, democracy was not the autonomous triumph of modern forms of political organization and activity – like political parties, labor movements, and mass education. Rather, these modern political actors were the byproduct of a very traditional activity, namely, religious conversion and competition."

The big issue over the last couple of centuries, to my mind, is that while it may once have been a plausible competitor for the title, the bible is not the best we've got any more, not by any stretch of the imagination. It provides little factual information about our world (the challenges of geological and biological sciences to a bible-based worldview were one of if not the biggest causes for the rise of reactionary fundamentalism and inerrancy doctrines); its social models and general morality of genocides and slavery (in both the 'old' and 'new' testaments) are woefully outdated to the point of being pretty much the most evil things in human history; its existential proposals of an ultimate eternal reward versus eternal punishment are pretty much the most evil thing we can even imagine and the cause of untold psychological suffering for many. One aspect of the morality preached by Jesus - a conception of love requiring that if you can help someone you must, to the point of literally giving everything more or less down to your daily bread and the clothes on your back as long as anyone else remains unclothed or unfed - may well be unsurpassed (and was a major inspiration for the likes of Tolstoy and Gandhi), but is so lofty that virtually no-one actually follows it seriously, least of all Christians!

There's certainly some value in poring over the myths and legends of ancient cultures, their occasional intersections with history, their social theories and radically different notions of morality, and the theologies they found useful for overcoming their existential fears. But while the grounds for considering an obviously-errant collection of Writings to be 'authoritative' and 'inspired' (that "God must be guiding us, and this is the best we've got, so we've got to treat it as God's guidance and make the most of it") may have made some sense a few centuries ago and may even have produced more good in the world than bad, they quite simply and obviously don't stand up to even cursory scrutiny any more.

Maybe now is the time for Christians to have another try at asking the Spirit for guidance instead? To look more into their own hearts and minds for what is right and good, rather than to the written code?

You haven’t a shred of evidence for this made up story. It seems the atheist team likes fiction when it comes to explaining people they don’t understand. But for the record, the atheists obtained full-on governments and the result was anything but good moral decisions and beneficial actions towards the people.

[alexxcJRO]

Of course, but your inference is a personal moral judgment.

You would be right if the Bible would not mention God being perfectly just.
I borrowed the language.
Unjust is just an antonym of just.
Words and concepts have meanings and understandings. I am putting such understanding against each other.
There is no personal moral judgment no matter how many times you repeat the same nonsense.

What passage are you referring to?

Yahweh punishes others:70,000 people for the sin of one man: David.
Q: Do you not agree that punishing a man with life in prison for the wrongdoing(murder) of another is not perfect justice?

You cannot extrapolate your own sexual drive to say others are just like you.

Q: So how can a man that feels disgust with males can get a boner with zero sexual attraction and zero arousal and without pills?

The entire point is they are still heterosexual.

I clearly says "may not consider themselves bisexual".
They off course do not consider themselves bisexual but they are. Cognitive dissonance is a known mechanism. People being afraid, closeted of being known as gay or bisexuals is a known thing.

Because you keep repeating your claims which we've debated over multiple times.

That post you have avoided always in the past. That's why I keep posting it. You never continue the debate past that point.

Doesn't matter what a nation states or not state. It's based on the actions.

So indirectly(not being directly stated) something can demonstrate another thing.
So you complaining the bible does not states something directly is stupid.

That can be a contributing factor.

What you have presented can be explained by Sexual promiscuity has its dangers(which is present in heterosexual relations too) and Men as opposed to women are more reckless.

[Mae von H]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #3967

I’ve read ancient creation accounts and can answer your question but these weren’t religious pieces.

The gods who appear in ancient creation accounts were believed in by ancient peoples.

I asked for example of these “ancient accounts.” If you insist there are ancient accounts, you must have read them. I’m asking for this info so I can read them.

If you are just imaging this whole explanation with zero evidence, then we can conclude that your method of researching these matters is to imagine how it was. I’m afraid that fiction is only useful to you.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #3967

I’ve read ancient creation accounts and can answer your question but these weren’t religious pieces.

The gods who appear in ancient creation accounts were believed in by ancient peoples.

I asked for example of these “ancient accounts.” If you insist there are ancient accounts, you must have read them. I’m asking for this info so I can read them.

If you are just imaging this whole explanation with zero evidence, then we can conclude that your method of researching these matters is to imagine how it was. I’m afraid that fiction is only useful to you.

This isn't difficult.

I'll find at least the Mesopotamian one from which the Abrahamic ones (evidence and epigraphy indicating a composite creation of Genesis and Exodus origin -stories in Babylon c 600 BC) derived. In the meantime, Wiki gives a handy list.

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

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #3967

I’ve read ancient creation accounts and can answer your question but these weren’t religious pieces.

The gods who appear in ancient creation accounts were believed in by ancient peoples.

I asked for example of these “ancient accounts.” If you insist there are ancient accounts, you must have read them. I’m asking for this info so I can read them.

If you are just imaging this whole explanation with zero evidence, then we can conclude that your method of researching these matters is to imagine how it was. I’m afraid that fiction is only useful to you.

This isn't difficult.

I'll find at least the Mesopotamian one from which the Abrahamic ones (evidence and epigraphy indicating a composite creation of Genesis and Exodus origin -stories in Babylon c 600 BC) derived. In the meantime, Wiki gives a handy list.

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

And here's a simple account of the Babylonian myth. This is basic stuff that anyone into Bible apologetics should know.



Not the interesting significance of God 'Ea' as connected with the Flood. Bit similar to 'Jah' or Ea-weh' wouldn't you say?

[otseng]

(U) I've already explained the difference between authority and might (power). If you claim they are equivalent, then produce your evidence.

POI Post 3946 -> "Might" means - All powerful, cannot be overridden, creates. I also explained in post 3929. Your usage and my usage are the same.

Yes, our definitions of might are the similar. Now what about authority?

(U) Equivocation is not a very minor technicality. And especially if you claim that I said those things.

POI I've explained, twice, why I am not using "equivocation"; both in my last response, as well as post 3929. The readers can see this. You are placing a rubberstamp on my response, so you do not have to address my response.

Why do I need to respond to a response I never stated?

In regard to God, you have stated that the 'goodness' of an action is predicated upon "God's nature".

As for my position, I've given it multiple times.

POI A supreme court judge, in the secular realm, is the highest authority within the law. I guess this also means what the supreme court judge dictates, is right Please go back to my defitnion of 'might'.

Right, it's the highest authority. It's not described as the highest might.

POI As we trek back to the last topic, I've already explained ad nauseum. You can assign a 'moral' attribution to the topic of economics as well. (i.e.) He's rich, he's poor. What IS rich vs. poor? Rhetorical question...

Irrelevant as I've pointed out. Simply saying someone is rich or poor has no normative claim.

POI I'll instead sum up your position. You either choose:

a) Because god says so (arbitrary - explained in video 1)
b) Other reason(s), (which you already attempted to do, which demonstrates no further need for God at all)

More false attributions.

(U) No, we are not speaking of the same thing.

POI Yes we are. Does God approve or disapprove of a man having intercourse with another man? It's really this simple. The Bible indicates that God is not okay with this action. This is what I'm talking about.

Yes, this is what the Bible is talking about, but you haven't, since you have repeatedly been talking about "gay sex".

POI None of the ancients thought male on male sex was icky, and decided to write "God pronouncements" about it?

Who's claiming anything is "icky"? Is stealing icky? Is breaking the Sabbath icky? Is eating pork icky?

[otseng]

You would be right if the Bible would not mention God being perfectly just.
I borrowed the language.
Unjust is just an antonym of just.

Again, since the Bible does not explicitly say God is unjust, then you are using your personal moral judgment to claim God is unjust.

There is no personal moral judgment no matter how many times you repeat the same nonsense.

Of course you are making a personal moral judgment. Do you claim God is unjust?

Yahweh punishes others:70,000 people for the sin of one man: David.
Q: Do you not agree that punishing a man with life in prison for the wrongdoing(murder) of another is not perfect justice?

Here's the passage:

[2Sa 24:12-15 KJV] 12 Go and say unto David, Thus saith the LORD, I offer thee three [things]; choose thee one of them, that I may [do it] unto thee. 13 So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. 14 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies [are] great: and let me not fall into the hand of man. 15 So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.

Justice was done in the sense that punishment resulted from David's sin of taking the census. But, was it fair David's subjects would bear the brunt of David's sin? I'd agree that it was not fair.

You cannot extrapolate your own sexual drive to say others are just like you.

Q: So how can a man that feels disgust with males can get a boner with zero sexual attraction and zero arousal and without pills?

Just because we don't understand the how does not negate the fact male on male sex happens in prisons.

They off course do not consider themselves bisexual but they are. Cognitive dissonance is a known mechanism. People being afraid, closeted of being known as gay or bisexuals is a known thing.

I would guess if you would go into a prison and tell one of the perpetrators that he is a bisexual, then I don't think he would take that too well.

You never continue the debate past that point.

Where have you stated something that I have not given a counter argument?

So you complaining the bible does not states something directly is stupid.

And you claiming the Bible says something that it does not directly say is not?