Why defend the Bible?

[unknown soldier]

Christian apologetics, understood as a defense of Christian beliefs, keeps busy defending the Bible. Why is it so important to defend the Bible?

I'm sure Christians have many reasons to defend the Bible which we can talk about, but here are four reasons we can begin to debate and discuss:

1. It is the "word of God" that communicates what he wants Christians to know.
2. It inspires and encourages them to remain steadfast in the faith.
3. It provides guidelines for living life wisely and morally.
4. It offers hope to them.

What exactly does the Bible need to be defended from? Again, we can discuss many reasons, but I'd like to start by discussing the following four reasons:

1. The Bible's pages are full of atrocities committed by God that no moral people can condone.
2. The Bible is full of internal inconsistencies that cannot be sensibly reconciled.
3. The Bible is often inconsistent with what we know from science and historical studies.
4. The Bible has failed to let Christians know what it really means, and that's why Christians have disagreed and even fought over it for centuries.

[unknown soldier]

I am not going to spend a lot of time on this anymore, but what I mean is taking the word of what others have to say without thinking through what is actually being said. So then, when someone comes along talking about the Bible and says, "It (the Bible) is the word of God that communicates what he wants Christians to know" that is a clear indication to me one has simply taken the word of others, because a real student of the Bible would know that much of the Bible (the whole of the NT) could not possibly fit that description.

I agree that trusting others as sources of information about what the Bible says without reading it for oneself and thinking about it may be unwise. But what I thought I had made clear is that if we want to know what people believe about the Bible, then we need to ask them and take their word for it unless we have good reason to think they're lying. Until somebody invents a "brain scanner" we are stuck with asking people what they believe. Many Christians have said: "It (the Bible) is the word of God that communicates what he wants Christians to know." I think that's their view and have no reason to doubt it.

Simply taking the word of others, is taking the word of others.

Again, sometimes we need to take the word of others if that's all we have.

What you seem to be forgetting, or more than likely never considered, is the fact that Paul's letters were addressed to particular audiences at the time, many of them dealing with particular problems within that particular audience, and Paul would have had only that audience in mind as he wrote. This can be easily demonstrated by examining the letters of Paul...

Your view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange. Are you saying that the early church selected books to include in the New Testament that are irrelevant to the Christian faith?

What in the world would Paul's letter to Philemon have to do with me?

You'll need to ask the Christians who included it in the New Testament, but I'm guessing that its perceived message is that God loves all people including slaves. Paul is presenting God as compassionate.

If I had to guess, (and only you know the answer here) I would not be surprised if you have no idea the subject Paul is addressing in this letter to Philemon without having to go and look. If I am correct, then are we really dealing with one who knows what is contained in the Bible?

Yes. I looked it up. Rather than take anybody's word for it, I did the necessary work by reading and thinking for myself.

So why are you attacking me personally rather than sticking with the issues? It looks like you're running out of arguments.

My friend, you referred to "moral people" in post #5, and you have also spoke of "decent people" as well as what would be moral. The only way one can refer to such things, is if they can demonstrate exactly what those things would be?

I think you're confusing my use of the word "moral" with my supposedly referring to a moral code. I don't need a moral code to understand what moral means.

In other words, you cannot refer to morality unless this morality has been defined, and I believe you will be hard pressed to define it in such a way as to where everyone will agree.

I use words all the time that I might not have defined. If people understand words like "moral" differently than I do, then I can live with that because morality is subjective.

So then, when you refer to these things, you are at the very least borrowing from the Christian world view.

I think extramarital sex is moral as long as nobody gets hurt. Did I borrow that from Christianity? No--if I agree with a Christian moral precept, then it's coincidence.

Okay, but simply because you think certain behavior is moral, and or immoral, does not in any way cause such behavior to be so.

For me it does.

As an example, there are many folks who believe that those who flew the planes into the buildings on 9-11 were immoral. However, these folks believed they were behaving morally, and there are many who agree with them. So then, who is it that decides which it would be?

Most people believe that the events of 9/11 are immoral. Do you have a problem with that? There's really no problem with people deciding what is or is not moral. Only Christian apologists who want to make themselves out to have some "objective" morality gripe about people choosing what is right and wrong.

But the thing is, simply because you conclude genocide to be immoral does not in any way cause genocide to be immoral.

Sure it does. For me genocide is immoral, but I realize you are forced to disagree because of your Christian faith.

As you can see the dictionary is not going to help you out because it uses the words moral, wicked, cruel, etc. and these things would have to be left to anyone's subjective opinion, unless there is some sort of standard outside of us.

Why do we need a standard when people generally do just fine by deciding what is moral?

The difference between you, and I is, I do not refer to the behavior of others as immoral, and I do not refer to myself as moral, exactly because I understand this.

So to defend the Bible you must dispense with judging morality. Christian apologetics gets stranger all the time!

Or, you can acknowledge the fact that what would be moral cannot be demonstrated, and so you do not refer to others as immoral, nor do you refer to yourself as being moral. Face the facts, either you can demonstrate that another's behavior is immoral? Or, you can only share your opinion, and we all have opinions.

I never said I can "demonstrate morality" (whatever that means). My opinion works just fine.

I do not condemn anyone as being immoral, and I do not refer to myself as being a moral person.

If you're family was gunned down, you would not call it immoral.

Because I can assure you that if someone was attempting to harm my family I would do everything I could to force my opinion upon them.

Why bother if you have no idea of morality?

In review, it appears that you have dispensed with any concept of morality to defend the Bible. I'm not terribly surprised that you have done so. It's very difficult to argue that the Bible is moral.

[unknown soldier]

I try to defend truth so that people would not be led astray.

That's very laudable, but I'm asking why the Bible needs to be defended. When you say "truth," do you mean the Bible?

And this means, if atheists falsely claim that Bible has something wrong, then I want to show it is not true so that other people would not be misled.

Why would atheists falsely claim that the Bible is wrong about something? If the Bible is as truthful as you seem to believe, then it seems odd that anybody would deny it.

[unknown soldier]

Well, theoph, I must give you credit. You are one of the few who has actually read the OP carefully and is addressing the issues I raised there.

I think it can reveal the word of God for those with ears to hear it. And by that I don't mean the special few who are gifted with some (un)natural capability, but rather those who put the effort in, and maintain an open posture to it.

I think I can paraphrase your argument this way:

God authored the Bible like a mystery novel. He wants the reader to "dig in" and solve the puzzles in its many pages. In so doing, the reader will be all the better having grown in faith from the rigor of discovering truths in its massive and convoluted narratives, poems, letters, rules and prophecies.

Here's my explanation for the difficulties of discerning what's written in the Bible:

The Bible was written by many different people who had conflicting agendas. They were writing fiction that, not surprisingly, was not consistent with the fiction that its other writers had made up. Some of the authors deliberately made the meaning of their words obscure knowing that some of their readers would mistake that obscurity for what a God would write who had knowledge that no person can fully understand.

How is your explanation for the Bible's difficulties any better than mine? It doesn't seem right to me that a perfect God would author a book in such a way that it would need to be defended.

[brunumb]

Again, sometimes we need to take the word of others if that's all we have.

The way I see it, believing anything written in the Bible is taking the word of others.

[unknown soldier]

Again, sometimes we need to take the word of others if that's all we have.

The way I see it, believing anything written in the Bible is taking the word of others.

That's exactly what believing something written in the Bible is; it's taking the word of others. RWJ doesn't seem to understand that simple fact. He disputes "reason to defend the Bible #1" in the OP: It is the "word of God" that communicates what he wants Christians to know. RWJ seems to think that no Christian defends the Bible for that reason. He thinks I have been gullible to believe those Christians who have said so, and I'm also lazy because I have not done "the work" needed to find the true reasons Christians defend the Bible. He explains that that work involves reading why Christians defend the Bible, but reading is merely a different way to find out what they say!

It gets even worse, but I should now ask why it is so common for Christian apologists to employ such twisted logic and denial of basic facts. It seems to me that when Christians defend their beliefs, they are desperate to score rhetorical points. They use a "shotgun approach" firing wildly in multiple directions hoping they hit their target--that something, that anything, might convince somebody. In this discussion, for example, RWJ has resorted to denying that Christians believe the Bible is the word of God to them. By denying that fact, he evidently hopes to discredit me for assuming its truth.

In other words, RWJ defends the Bible by destroying it. Unwittingly, he is doing my work for me.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #31]

Many Christians have said: "It (the Bible) is the word of God that communicates what he wants Christians to know." I think that's their view and have no reason to doubt it.

But the thing is, anyone who has done any sort of study of the what is contained in the Bible would know that much, and I mean MUCH of the Bible could not possibly fit this category. Much, and even most of the OT were laws, and instruction given to the Israelites, which would have nothing to do with us today. The overwhelming majority of the NT can be demonstrated to be letters addressed to particular audiences at the time, with no concern, nor any idea that anyone else would read these letters other than the intended audience, and they certainly had no idea that you, and I would be reading these letters some 2000 years later. Now, you are claiming that this is what Christians claim to believe, and this is why you bring it up, but I think it can be clearly demonstrated this is your view of the Bible as well, since you continue to describe my thinking on these things as "strange" (which we will address as we move on) which sort of demonstrates one who is simply listening to what Christians have to say, but clearly has not done very much study of the Bible on their own.

Your view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange.

And here we go? Really? So, it is "strange" to understand and acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of the NT were letters addressed to particular audiences at the time, and these authors were addressing issues at that time, and they only had their particular audience in mind as they wrote, and the fact that none of these authors could have possibly known about any sort Bible, and so they certainly were not writing in order to be contained in the Bible? This is somehow "strange" to you? This is someone who certainly seems to clearly demonstrate that they are taking their view of the Bible from others, and have not really read the content for themselves using their own mind, because if they had, then this certainly would not be "strange" in the least.

But then, to go on to demonstrate that you seem to take the same view as many Christians, you go on to say,

Are you saying that the early church selected books to include in the New Testament that are irrelevant to the Christian faith?

My friend, the overwhelming majority of what is contained in the NT would not be "books", but would rather be letters, which were written to particular audiences at the time. Moreover, it is very possible that all of the NT would have been letters.

Next, would you suggest that the letters we have from Caesar would not be irrelevant? I certainly hope not, because historians believe these letters can tell us what actually happened in history because of these letters. Now of course, we do not have the time, and space to go through all the NT, so let us simply consider Paul's letter to Philemon again.

As I stated before, there is nothing in this letter that would pertain to me, which means there would be nothing in this letter God would wanted me to know. However, as we read this letter, there is a lot we all can learn about Paul, and his life. With this being the case, it is not only Christians who can benefit from this letter, but also unbelievers. Now, I am not going to go through the whole letter, but this letter certainly would have been written while Paul would have been under arrest, and Paul refers to himself as an "old man". Next, Paul happens to mention the name of Luke, as if Luke would have been with him at the time of writing this letter. Well, guess what? The author of Luke, was also most certainly the author of Acts. Okay, then the author of Acts, begins to use the words "we", and "us" when describing the travels of Paul, as if he is there to actually witness the events he is describing, and he is writing to one individual. Now, can you imagine where the author of Acts ends his letter? Well, that would be while Paul would have been under arrest, just like he would have been when Paul mentions the name of Luke as being with him in his letter to Philemon.

Now, can you imagine what this would tell us, whether Christian or not? Well, that would be that the author of both Luke, and Acts, would have traveled with Paul. But guess what else it would tell us? This would tell us that this author would have been alive at the time of Jesus, would have known and spent a lot of time with the Apostles, and would have heard the claims they were making from their very lips. If this is the case, then this would mean the scholars have it wrong, and there would have been at least one of the authors of the Gospels, who would have been alive at the time of the events reported.

What I have just done, is to take a very short letter which is contained in the Bible, and analyzed just a very small portion, of this very small letter, and demonstrated just how relevant it would be, not only to Christians, but also to everyone who reads it. And you want to say, "Your view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange"?

but I'm guessing that its (Philemon) perceived message is that God loves all people including slaves. Paul is presenting God as compassionate.

This is SO, SO COMICAL! You are guessing? Well how about this? Paul is going around on his missionary journeys, and ends up in prison, and continues to preach the Gospel while in prison and runs into this guy named Onesimus? As his relationship with this Onesimus continues, Paul discovers Onesimus is a run away slave of Philemon. Therefore, Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, with this letter? With this being the case, this would have nothing at all to do with Paul, "presenting God as compassionate" to all Christians, and this is how all Christians should operate, but rather this was simply Paul living his life, and this letter would have simply been a by product of the life Paul was living? It is simply amazing to me how blinded folks are to this? In other words, because this letter is contained into what has been called the Bible, it has to have something to do with what God would want to communicate to Christians and how they should live, when the letter is clearly about Paul's concern for Onesimus, and Philemon. The next thing that is amazing to me is, when one is under the impression that, "if it ain't about us, then it ain't relevant". UNREAL!

Yes. I looked it up.

Would this be to say that I would have been correct that you had to go and look in order to know what the subject of this letter was?

So why are you attacking me personally rather than sticking with the issues?

I am not attacking you? Rather, I am attacking your idea of what the Bible contains, and is. You claim the Bible is full of atrocities, and inconsistencies, along with other complaints, however upon investigation we seem to have determined that you know very little about what is actually contained in the Bible. You claim that my "view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange" but anyone who has done any sort of real study at all would understand that it is not strange in the least, which sort of demonstrates one who has done very little study of their own, and has simply picked the view they believed to be the most popular.

It looks like you're running out of arguments.

Does it really?

I think you're confusing my use of the word "moral" with my supposedly referring to a moral code. I don't need a moral code to understand what moral means.

What moral means, and what it is, is two different things. Moral means, correct behavior. So then, who is it that determines correct behavior? If we are all left to our own subjective opinion, then none of us can insist that another's behavior would be absolutely immoral. You would need some sort of standard to do such a thing.

I use words all the time that I might not have defined. If people understand words like "moral" differently than I do, then I can live with that because morality is subjective.

Okay, this would mean that morality would be left to the opinion of each individual, and one opinion would be no better than any other, and if there are those who want to fly jet planes into buildings killing thousands of people under the name of "morality" then we cannot in any way insist their behavior would have been absolutely immoral, because it would have been moral in their subjective opinion.

You have to face the facts! If you cannot demonstrate what morality would be, then you really cannot refer to the behavior of others as being immoral. I have faced these facts, and I do not refer to others as immoral.

I think extramarital sex is moral as long as nobody gets hurt. Did I borrow that from Christianity? No--if I agree with a Christian moral precept, then it's coincidence.

If you hold the opinion that morality is subjective, then you are not borrowing from the Christian world view. But if this is the case, then you cannot refer to those who are moral, (and you have) because this suggests there is some sort of standard which we can use to determine who would be moral, and who would be immoral. But again, if morality is subjective to each one of us individually then we have no way to refer to others as actually being moral, or immoral.

For me it does.

Correct! But everyone else in the world could have a completely different standard. Allow me to attempt to explain it this way. When the U.S. put a stop the Germany, (which killed millions of Jews) we cannot claim it was the moral thing to do, because there is no set standard. Therefore, what we really did, was to force our morality upon the German people.

Most people believe that the events of 9/11 are immoral.

Oh really? How did you determine this to be the case? Did you go out and take a poll? I have no idea what "most people" would believe, but I'm thinking there would be millions, upon millions in the middle east who would happily agree that it was the moral thing to do. Next, are you suggesting that what the majority would believe determines morality? If so, then there was a time when slavery would have been moral.

There's really no problem with people deciding what is or is not moral.

My friend, if you are allowing everyone to decide morality for themselves, and you are okay with this (which I am) then you would have to admit that everyone would be moral people, as long as the lived according to what they believed to be moral. Therefore, if those who flew the Planes were acting according to their subjective moral standard, then they would be behaving morally according to you. Because you see, with what you seem to be championing, folks do not have to live according to your standard to be moral, but rather according to their own standard. This means, if they lived outside their own moral standard, to behave as you do, this is when they would be referred to as being immoral.

Only Christian apologists who want to make themselves out to have some "objective" morality gripe about people choosing what is right and wrong.

I as a Christian have no problem with allowing each person to determine their own morality. The problem comes in when there are those who hold this position, and then want to insist another would be immoral, when they are simply living according to the subjective moral standards they have set for themselves, even if this means their subjective moral standard involves flying planes into buildings in order to kill thousands.

Sure it does. For me genocide is immoral, but I realize you are forced to disagree because of your Christian faith.

This is where you are incorrect, because I am not the one who is insisting on what morality would be, and referring to other's behavior as immoral. That would be you! But again, the fact of the matter is, there were many in Germany who believed "genocide" to be the moral thing to do, and according to you they would have been acting immorally to behave outside of what they believed to be moral to them.

Why do we need a standard when people generally do just fine by deciding what is moral?

So then, you agree that Germany, and those who championed slavery were doing just fine? In fact, there are those still today who champion, and practice slavery, so I guess they are doing just fine as well?

So to defend the Bible you must dispense with judging morality. Christian apologetics gets stranger all the time!

It is only "strange" to those who take the word of others, instead of doing the study themselves. Because you see, as I Christian I am free from the chase after morality. Morality is only chased by those who think they know what it is, and can obtain it. Some of us are slaves to morality, while there are others who are free from morality, and are free to help others, not out of an obligation to morality, but rather simply out of love, and compassion for others. You might want to read the story of the "Good Samaritan" and I think you may see that there was only one person in the story who was free from morality who was able to help.

If you're family was gunned down, you would not call it immoral.

How could I, and what good would it do to refer to it is, "immoral"? I acknowledge I would do whatever I could to protect my family, but I would not attempt to justify my actions as somehow being the moral thing to do. I will leave the chase after morality to you, and others.

In review, it appears that you have dispensed with any concept of morality to defend the Bible. I'm not terribly surprised that you have done so. It's very difficult to argue that the Bible is moral.

My friend, the best you can rightly say is, "the Bible is immoral in your mind". You cannot in any way demonstrate, the Bible is immoral.

[1213]

... but I'm asking why the Bible needs to be defended. When you say "truth," do you mean the Bible?...

I mean truth. And it means for example, if Bible tells for example, "love your neighbor" and someone says that is doesnt say so, I want to correct it and tell what it actually says.

Obviously, many dont like what the Bible tells and they may reject it. To me that is not the problem, problem is if people reject it with false reasons.

...Why would atheists falsely claim that the Bible is wrong about something? If the Bible is as truthful as you seem to believe, then it seems odd that anybody would deny it.

I agree, it is odd. Maybe the reason is that atheists hate God and other people and want them to get lost.

[1213]

... It isn't atheists alone who recognize that the Bible isn't without error. Some theists recognize this fact and some of the theists who do so are Christians.

Claiming something is wrong, doesnt necessary mean something is really wrong. I agree that there are many "Christians" who have not understood what the Bible tells and none of them can show any real error in the Bible. Those who claim Bible is wrong, only manage to show is their bad interpretations, no real mistakes in the Bible.

[theophile]

And that's the rub: there is this pernicious idea that the truths contained in the bible should be obvious. That the writers have made (or should have made) them plain for all to see.

An interesting defense of the Bible. Thousands of years ago when the those things were written the majority of people were simple, illiterate folk. Those able to read and communicate the contents were not necessarily profound thinkers like we're surrounded with today, so it would not be unreasonable to expect the writers to have made the contents obvious and plain enough for all to see.

Even today, those who claim to have plumbed the depths of the Bible don't seem to be in agreement with others making the same claim. The confusion applies to all levels of study and possibly more so to those who see deep and meaningful messages that may not really be there. How to we really know who has got it right?

We're surrounded by "profound thinkers" today? Hmm. I think intelligence is evenly distributed across history, and that it's a bit presumptuous to assume that people in the middle east / mediterranean 2000 years ago were "simple."

Also, the very fact that there is debate to this day goes to show my point. These are challenging texts. They weren't designed to be simple or easy but to get us thinking, to rile us up, to push us deeper and closer to wisdom in the process.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #35]

That's exactly what believing something written in the Bible is; it's taking the word of others. RWJ doesn't seem to understand that simple fact.

Well, let's see if this is the case? Several authors which are contained in the Bible claim that Jesus rose form the dead. Now, if I were to simply believe what they wrote, without any sort of questions, then this would be "taking the word of others". However, if I were to examine what they report, and go on to consider all that would have to be involved in order for these folks to be lying, or mistaken, along with all that would have to be involved in order for them to be reporting the truth, am I really simply taking the word of others? Or, am I examining the facts, and evidence involved in order to arrive to a conclusion?

He disputes "reason to defend the Bible #1" in the OP: It is the "word of God" that communicates what he wants Christians to know. RWJ seems to think that no Christian defends the Bible for that reason.

Please demonstrate where I have ever said, "no Christian defends the Bible for that reason"? I have not. Rather, what has been demonstrated is that you hold the same position as these Christians, which is exactly why you refer to my position as, "strange". It would not be strange to you if you were actually a student of the Bible. The reason why it is strange to you is because you are getting your idea of what the Bible is, from what Christians have told you, and not from the Bible itself.

So then, it would seem that we have one who wants to tell us a certain position on the Bible is "strange" when they show little knowledge of the Bible. Next, this same person wants to insist, that the Bible would be immoral, and they cannot even demonstrate what morality would be, on top of the fact already mentioned in that they show very little knowledge of what the Bible would actually be.

He thinks I have been gullible to believe those Christians who have said so, and I'm also lazy because I have not done "the work" needed to find the true reasons Christians defend the Bible.

My point has nothing to do with what most Christians claim to believe about the Bible. Rather, it has everything to do with you getting your ideas about the Bible by listening to what others have to say, instead of the Bible itself. Your creating a "straw man".

In other words, RWJ defends the Bible by destroying it.

I am not "destroying the Bible", but rather "destroying" your idea of what the Bible is, which you have arrived to not by actually reading it for yourself, but rather, taking the word of others.