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

[brunumb]

How can the Bible be regarded as authoritative and inspired when it contains passages like this from Joshua 10:

Is there any doctrine of Christianity based on this passage? Yes, it's easy to find passages that we don't understand and then say, "I don't understand it, so the Bible is wrong." And we could go on forever in this thread if were to argue over every passage we don't understand. However, I am willing to look at passages that impact core doctrines of Christianity.

It's not a matter of understanding. The passage is quite clear and patently untenable. One could almost go as far as saying that it is a deliberate lie. When that can occur in one or more parts of the Bible, how can we not consider that it occurs elsewhere. That leaves everything open to question and doubt, particularly those things that require miracles such as in the case of the resurrection.

[TRANSPONDER]

I only care about whether on internal or external evidence, it is reliable as a record of events.

That's what I care as well.

..clipped with apologies)...

If they are Christians it is blindingly obvious why they would want to invent tales - as they demonstrably did; because the original story did not suit them and so had to be altered and embellished.

otseng[/b] I do not discount the possibility of them altering recollection of events (whether it be intentional or not). But, as you mentioned, "the the four are consistent in the core doctrine". They did not alter the basic message, but in the details they do have variations.

[quote/]

As I'm sure you will recall, my argument is that the contradictions are so mutually destructive that that they cannot be dismissed as 'altering recollections of events', nor that they omitted it for some reason, as I have heard suggested at times.. The nativities, the shifting of the Temple cleansing, the resurrection, Lazarus being raised omitted from the synoptics, and the transfiguration omitted from John. These are too important and too memorable to be excused in that way. While I probably can't convince you, I believe that the case is good that the writers never knew about the events the others wrote.

[otseng]

If all we had was the Tanakh - two thirds of the canon - we probably wouldn't consider any of those to be major or consistent messages. We'd read about God's various covenants with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, Joshua and David, and probably understand "sin" simply as breaking the particulars of such a covenant (the word itself apparently coming from "a primitive root; properly, to miss"); not as some kind of ultimate metaphysical taint or barrier, and least of all one requiring human sacrifice to remove!

It's difficult to find any passage in the Old Testament where people are not sinning. It's a constant theme. At the same time we also see God trying to draw people away from sin and into a relationship with Him.

As for the nuances of what exactly is sin, actually, I agree with you that sin has more the connotation of missing the mark. Even in the Greek it's more of that concept. But, even with this definition, my statement that people sin stands, and probably even more so.

Jesus didn't tell the guy to just have 'faith' in him or in God

My list of core doctrines is not meant to be exhaustive and there are of course more. Yes, there are many things that Jesus taught. But without faith in him, that is believing his words are true and that he is who he claims to be, it would be impossible to go on to the next steps of accepting and obeying what he taught.

Christianity is defined by Christians...

But, if a practice is not based on the Bible, it's hard to argue that it would be legitimate Christianity. This was the main point of the Reformation. Even if the Pope himself declares what should be true Christianity, should people accept it? And on what authority can people dispute the Pope? Same goes with any pastor, bishop, professor or any other person in authority.

By necessity, from both God's perspective and our perspective, there should be some written document to serve as the ultimate authority. God knew there'd be no way to objectively counter people who abuse their power without a written source of authority. So, God provided the Bible as the means to be the authority over the church.

Imagine trying to tell someone they're just a 'cultural Hindu' if they find community, context, ethics, peace and transcendence from their religion but don't believe all the stories about Krishna or consider the Bhagavata Purana 'authoritative.'

This is a major difference between Hinduism and Christianity. There is no absolute authority in Hinduism. A Hindu can basically believe anything he/she wants and don't really have any doctrines or standards of belief. They take all their scripture as sacred, but they are not used to establish a set of doctrine that all Hindus must adhere to.

If you do tell a Hindu they are just a cultural Hindu, I would highly doubt any of them would disagree. Hinduism and their culture highly overlap with one influencing the other. In the case of Christianity, the culture might influence and shape us, but we are called to be more influenced by the Bible. And if the culture supercedes what is written in the Bible, I would argue they/we are cultural Christians.

If its purpose were exchanging information and learning new things, then surely you'd be glad to have discovered something new?

I operate this forum because I believe Christianity is true. If Christianity is false, I'll let someone else run another forum (and save a lot of my money and time as well).

A global flood is falsifiable to a point of near certainty, and obviously has been falsified - despite some folks' reluctance to admit it - but small scale events from ancient history will always be pretty uncertain one way or the other

Yeah, I do realize it'll take a lot of work on my part to sway people otherwise.

Absolute falsification may be impossible, but at what level of confidence do you think a resurrection conclusion could be rationally reached?

bluegreenearth mentioned discovering the bones of Jesus (though it might be practically impossible to do), but I would consider that to be a defeater of Christianity.

As you said earlier regarding biblical inerrancy, and as Tam responded regarding 'authority,' the resurrection could be true even if the bible is not authoritative: On the other hand, it seems the bible cannot be authoritative if the resurrection is not true, meaning it's irrational to accept the conclusion of biblical authority any more than the extent of rational proof for the resurrection.

If the resurrection of Jesus did not happen, it's not just the authority of the Bible that is in question, all of Christianity is falsified.

1Co 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.

As for proof, there won't be any 100% conclusive proofs for anything - whether it be God exists or not, Jesus was resurrected or not, a global flood did or did not occur, or the Bible is authoritative or not. Each person will have to make their own decision given the arguments and evidence.

[otseng]

Over the course of this thread, I thought we'd come to an agreement that God communicating directly with more than one person at a time was well within his power, and could be considered 'optimal' in the sense of clarity, and trustworthiness of the message imparted. Some may choose to ignore or disobey the message, but then that's also true of a written record.

I however never agreed that God should always communicate directly with people. Yes, God has communicated with some people directly, in the past and and even now. And the only time God will communicate directly with everyone will be in heaven.

If I'm arguing for the flood, a good source would NOT be the Bible to show that a global flood occurred. So, in terms of your ranking for discussing the flood, the Bible would not even be on the list.

<bolding mine>

Is that because of lack of evidence?

Because if I use the Bible as evidence for a global flood which in turn is used to argue for the authority of the Bible, it would be a circular argument.

And crucially - like any good scientist - we should look to falsify the hypothesis, and only retain it if no-one can do so.

Certainly.

It's not a matter of understanding. The passage is quite clear and patently untenable. One could almost go as far as saying that it is a deliberate lie. When that can occur in one or more parts of the Bible, how can we not consider that it occurs elsewhere. That leaves everything open to question and doubt, particularly those things that require miracles such as in the case of the resurrection.

As I'm sure you will recall, my argument is that the contradictions are so mutually destructive that that they cannot be dismissed as 'altering recollections of events', nor that they omitted it for some reason, as I have heard suggested at times.. The nativities, the shifting of the Temple cleansing, the resurrection, Lazarus being raised omitted from the synoptics, and the transfiguration omitted from John. These are too important and too memorable to be excused in that way. While I probably can't convince you, I believe that the case is good that the writers never knew about the events the others wrote.

Professor Ken Schenek gives some good insight into the minds of the Biblical authors in this video and how our modern mind skews our understanding of the Bible. Though this video is more specific to the gospels, the principles he mentions applies on how they thought back then compared to how we think now.

[TRANSPONDER]

Oh my curry lunch..... Just the first minute and I realised we are hearing about: we can think anything we like, and interpret the Bible any way we like because of the Holy Spirit ...except we can't be sure when that is what is guiding us...I can write the rest and put it to music. If you want to be led up the garden path to fairy land, you can't do better than this bloke.
Please yourself, But I'll continue to argue the Bible by what it is it as broadly agreed by everyone who translates it (1) and never mind what this or that word really meant in Hebrew or Greek, and stick to the logically undeniable. The Temple cleansing is Here in the Synoptics and There in John and the debate will be about whether the synoptics somehow didn't know about the one before the baptism and John didn't think the one during Holy Week was worth mentioning, (or some similar excuse), not about playing the Interpretation - card to make the Gospels mean what they don't say.

(1) it's always been an axiom of mine that 'I can argue and debate even using the KJV,' because it's based on broad undeniables, not translation -shopping and interpreting odd passages.

[otseng]

The Bible is a complex book that cannot be simply viewed from a single perspective and then entirely judged by that perspective. It is a book utilizing many literary devices, several of which don't even exist today. Just because one views it from one perspective and doesn't understand it doesn't mean the Bible itself is wrong. It's like a reporter reading a poem and saying the poem is all wrong. It doesn't contain any facts and is not clear on what it means. And the facts that it might contain are all wrong. The point of a poem is not to relay facts and news to a reader. If a poem is submitted as a news article, of course it will be rejected because that's not the purpose of a poem.

When skeptics attack the Bible, it's a similar situation. The Bible is not meant to be an encyclopedia of factual information and judged entirely through that perspective. Yes, some parts are historically factual, but not all of it is. The authors never meant it to be 100% accurate reporting of events, but somewhere on the continuum between fiction and non-fiction. And even if they wanted it to be 100% accurate, it's doubtful they would have had the means to achieve it.

The Bible can be broken up into 3 main literary styles:
* 43% is in narrative form
* 33% is poetic
* 24% is prose discourse



Though the Bible is primarily in story form, one thing special about it is much of it is claimed to be rooted in actual history. It gives names of people, places, cities, mountains, rivers, dating of events relative to other events, etc. And it's at least theoretically possible to cross check through extra Biblical sources (perhaps much more difficult now, but when written it certainly was open to that).

There are also many literary forms used in the Bible. Some is literal and some is figurative. And determining what is literal and what is figurative, or even what is both, can sometimes not be easy.

From God's perspective, the Bible is meant to speak to all people in all time, whether it be a headhunter or head professor at a university. One literary device might be more relatable to one culture compared to another. Parts of the Bible speaks to right brained people and parts speaks to left brained people. Parts speak more to an eastern mind and parts speaks more to a western mind.

Another interesting feature I find of the Bible is though it is a complex book, it's easy to read on the surface. Many books written analyzing the Bible are often much more complex than the Bible itself.

Just for the literary value of the Bible, I can't think of any other single volume book that has so much variation in genre, literary styles, and literary forms and also be able to speak across all cultures throughout all the history of mankind. This doesn't show the Bible is authoritative or trustworthy, but it does mean trying to attack the Bible without understanding the literary landscape does not nullify its authority or trustworthiness.

[TRANSPONDER]

You are missing the point. The Bible operates on a lot of different levels: historical, mythological, doctrinal, poetic, etc. I am just considering one important aspect - historical reliability. Even if (and when) it is recognised that it is a book very loosely based on real history but massively overlaid with doctrinal polemic, it will still be valid as historical literature, poetry, myth and religious doctrine. But not as a reliable record of who Jesus was and a lot of what he did. And doctrine will become academic - literally, an academic study, as the foundation for Christianity claiming the Bible - based doctrines as true will have collapsed. And not before time.

[brunumb]

The Bible is not meant to be an encyclopedia of factual information and judged entirely through that perspective. Yes, some parts are historically factual, but not all of it is. The authors never meant it to be 100% accurate reporting of events, but somewhere on the continuum between fiction and non-fiction. And even if they wanted it to be 100% accurate, it's doubtful they would have had the means to achieve it.

We are really in no position to argue the intentions of the authors when we don't even know who they were let alone why they wrote what they did. If they did indeed want it to be 100% accurate, and why wouldn't they, they had the best means possible to achieve it. God's inspiration.

[TRANSPONDER]

The Bible is not meant to be an encyclopedia of factual information and judged entirely through that perspective. Yes, some parts are historically factual, but not all of it is. The authors never meant it to be 100% accurate reporting of events, but somewhere on the continuum between fiction and non-fiction. And even if they wanted it to be 100% accurate, it's doubtful they would have had the means to achieve it.

We are really in no position to argue the intentions of the authors when we don't even know who they were let alone why they wrote what they did. If they did indeed want it to be 100% accurate, and why wouldn't they, they had the best means possible to achieve it. God's inspiration.

At the risk of being repetitive (not that it ever bothered me up to now), yes, it is a valid expectation that God, if He had the power to find car -keys, score goals and win elections, why wouldn't he ensure that the writers of his Book got their story convincingly straight? Slips of copying and little erroneous details isn't the point (though Bible apologists like to maintain that it is) but really serious divergencies must (reasonably) raise the question - is this God's Book or just another tome of fairy -tales?

[otseng]

If they did indeed want it to be 100% accurate, and why wouldn't they, they had the best means possible to achieve it. God's inspiration.

Precisely explaining how this can occur is the problem. This is why I would not claim this in a debate that I would have to back up. Also, what does it mean in regards to inerrancy? Should God's inspiration always lead to inerrancy?

At the risk of being repetitive (not that it ever bothered me up to now), yes, it is a valid expectation that God, if He had the power to find car -keys, score goals and win elections, why wouldn't he ensure that the writers of his Book got their story convincingly straight? Slips of copying and little erroneous details isn't the point (though Bible apologists like to maintain that it is) but really serious divergencies must (reasonably) raise the question - is this God's Book or just another tome of fairy -tales?

This is a false dichotomy of either the Bible must be 100% factually correct or either just a tome of fairy tales. And this mentality of only having two possible extreme positions is not just limited to viewing the authority of the Bible. In Christianity, it's not either someone is a fundamentalist Christian or is not a Christian. In Islam, it's not either everyone is a radical terrorist or not a Muslim. In fact, in both of these cases, I would say the vast majority is in a moderate camp whether a Christian or Muslim. This viewpoint is not limited to religion either. This stereotyping that everyone in a particular group must have a certain quality is pervasive. And operating under this perspective of polarizing an issue is not realistic or productive.