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

[otseng]

Well yes, it does sound reasonable. There is no reason to demand tilting, faulting, rolling over and strata folding everywhere.

For the span of a billion years, there is relatively little evidence of faults, uplift, folding, erosion, seismic activity, geologic activity (and let me add even plant growth) is reasonable?

Still it's handy that you focus on that particular feature which can be considered in detail, rather than a general assessment of global geology, which is a big subject.

I'm talking about a general pattern seen throughout the world, not just an isolated occurrence.

Whether you realize it or not, your description above is an extreme oversimplification of very complex and nuanced geologic, geophysical, and geomorphic processes which requires many years of intense fieldwork, experimentation, research, and study to accurately comprehend. Therefore, it would be naïve for me or anyone else to expect you to become convinced by mere fragments of a complete picture. Unfortunately, while I am an experienced geomorphologist, I just don't have the time or resources to teach you what I know and can only encourage you to acquire the advanced education necessary on this topic before judging the consensus of experts in the field to be unreasonable. There is nothing wrong with asking those critical thinking questions, but it should mean something to you that none of the experts in the field have found any evidence to suggest the established theories in geology, geomorphology, geophysics, sedimentology, stratigraphy, etc. are unreasonable at this time.

Excellent, then as our resident expert, you would be the ideal person to answer the questions for us.

Whether all the skeptics realize it or not, all the attacks on the Bible have been also an "extreme oversimplification of a very complex and nuanced" book. I have already spent considerable time trying to clarify the erroneous views of the Bible and I expect to spend even more time on this. I would ask you to do the same with geology.

The content provided in the videos below are not at all comprehensive enough, but they do describe a brief history of how the foundational principles of "Earth Science" were first developed, critically examined, and finally accepted by the consensus of experts at the time:

I would ask that you post the salient text of the videos in the post and then provide the link to the videos as a reference.

btw. I'm still wondering whether all this shouldn't be hived off to a new thread. Young earth objections to deep time geology relate of course to Genesis -literalism but it's not directly the subject of Bible inerrancy.

I've been reluctant all along to go into details of arguing for a global flood here, but a poster has been clamoring to discuss it...

But a worldwide flood with animals on a boat for a year? Nada. As for the general creation story, among other problems,

Diagoras has said discussing the flood is not necessary...

Of what relevance is it that Diagoras said it is not necessary to discuss the flood? You made a claim there is evidence for the Biblical creation and flood stories. I am asking you to support your claim.

Oliver wrote, "I will eventually get to the creation and the flood. But, I ask everyone to stop repeatedly asking for us to cover these. I will get to it."
Will we have to wait until you translate Proto-Masoretic Hebrew from Second Temple period?

For the flood discussions, we can go back to discussing the actual OP of authority and inerrancy of the Bible when we conclude the discussion on the global pattern we see of the rock strata.

[TRANSPONDER]

Well yes, it does sound reasonable. There is no reason to demand tilting, faulting, rolling over and strata folding everywhere.

For the span of a billion years, there is relatively little evidence of faults, uplift, folding, erosion, seismic activity, geologic activity (and let me add even plant growth) is reasonable?

Still it's handy that you focus on that particular feature which can be considered in detail, rather than a general assessment of global geology, which is a big subject.

I'm talking about a general pattern seen throughout the world, not just an isolated occurrence.

Why would there be? There is erosion, mountain - building volcanoes and tectonic faulting hoing on all the time all over the world, and yet in most of it we just live on the flat earth and roll with the occasional earthquake.

You'll find a mass of fossil plant -life. Note the Carboniferous era, with the deposits of coal seams that are an industrial resource. Coal is ALL plant life compressed into rock. If you were referring specifically to the Grand Canyon strata, first we'd have to check whether these are pre Carboniferous rocks in which case they were formed before there was much plant -life on land. And remember, in a flood deposit, wouldn't we expect there to be a LOT of washed in plant life? The lack of it would rather support a river slowly cutting through hard rock and nowhere, really, for plant life to get fossilized?

...

btw. I'm still wondering whether all this shouldn't be hived off to a new thread. Young earth objections to deep time geology relate of course to Genesis -literalism but it's not directly the subject of Bible inerrancy.

I've been reluctant all along to go into details of arguing for a global flood here, but a poster has been clamoring to discuss it...

But a worldwide flood with animals on a boat for a year? Nada. As for the general creation story, among other problems,

Diagoras has said discussing the flood is not necessary...

Of what relevance is it that Diagoras said it is not necessary to discuss the flood? You made a claim there is evidence for the Biblical creation and flood stories. I am asking you to support your claim.

Oliver wrote, "I will eventually get to the creation and the flood. But, I ask everyone to stop repeatedly asking for us to cover these. I will get to it."
Will we have to wait until you translate Proto-Masoretic Hebrew from Second Temple period?

For the flood discussions, we can go back to discussing the actual OP of authority and inerrancy of the Bible when we conclude the discussion on the global pattern we see of the rock strata.
[/quote]

So far, my good otseng, you haven't been backwards in coming forwards to debate the Flood, in particular whether the Geology supports it. If you want to drop it and move to another subject, that's up to you and I've no objection sine you seem to be losing on points right now.

But if the Flood -debate were to proceed, I'm just wondering whether a dedicated separate thread might not be a bad idea. Up to you. We goddless satanspawn are willing to debate any aspect of Biblical errancy.

[TRANSPONDER]

I just had a rummage and it seems that we have a base of igneous rocks which will be the ones formed before life even got started. The sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are pre -Cabrian and Cambrian; fossil graptolites and trilobites. No fish yet, let alone plants or land animals. These rocks were just too early. The river was relatively late. Tectonic movement lifted these sea -deposit layers up and the river formed and slowly cut down through these rock layers.

At least that what the geology is supposed to show. It does not in any way seem to support a Flood -scenario.

[otseng]

Why would there be? There is erosion, mountain - building volcanoes and tectonic faulting hoing on all the time all over the world, and yet in most of it we just live on the flat earth and roll with the occasional earthquake.

Not sure your point here. Yes, geologic activity is going on all the time, esp erosion. Yet, the pattern is we see practically no geologic activity (and in particular erosion) until after all the layers are deposited. And after all the layers are formed, we do not see just a little bit of erosion either, but a massive erosion that pretty much erodes through all the underlying sedimentary layers. This pattern is confirmed by the rock strata anywhere you go in the world.

You'll find a mass of fossil plant -life. Note the Carboniferous era, with the deposits of coal seams that are an industrial resource. Coal is ALL plant life compressed into rock. If you were referring specifically to the Grand Canyon strata, first we'd have to check whether these are pre Carboniferous rocks in which case they were formed before there was much plant -life on land. And remember, in a flood deposit, wouldn't we expect there to be a LOT of washed in plant life? The lack of it would rather support a river slowly cutting through hard rock and nowhere, really, for plant life to get fossilized?

Coal is a very interesting topic. If we still want to talk about the flood, we can discuss after addressing the rock strata pattern.

[otseng]

One of the largest canyons on earth is the Blyde River Canyon in South Africe. It is 16 miles long and averages 2,460 feet in depth.





We see multiple parallel layers. So, when they were originally formed, it was all relatively flat and underwater. These layers covers a vast range of land. Then after all these layers were deposited, massive erosion took place. I don't think any of these statements can be disputed. One questions is the timescale of how fast this sequence of steps occurred. Is it on the order of millions/billions of years? Or was it much faster than that? Also why this sequence? What would cause this? Does SG have any predictive power to explain this sequence?

[otseng]

Capertee Valley is the largest canyon in Australia. It has a length of 19 miles and 1 mile depth.

We see the same pattern of parallel layers deposited. And after all the layers were formed, there is massive erosion.







Fish River Canyon is the largest canyon in Africa. "It features a gigantic ravine, in total about 160 kilometres (100 mi) long, up to 27 km wide and in places almost 550 meters deep."

Again, same pattern.





The Taihang Grand Canyon in China also testifies to the pattern.



Charyn Canyon in Kazakhstan:



So, this pattern is not a local phenomenon, but a global phenomenon. All across the world, we see flat layers formed with practically no evidence of erosion or any geologic activity recorded in the strata, then after all the layers were formed, massive erosion took place.

[brunumb]

All across the world, we see flat layers formed with practically no evidence of erosion or any geologic activity recorded in the strata, then after all the layers were formed, massive erosion took place.

Apart from the fact that the pattern is observed globally, how do you account for the deposition of the layers and subsequent erosion in terms of the biblical flood scenario?

[JoeyKnothead]

For those interested in a debate about a global flood...

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6164

[TRANSPONDER]

One of the largest canyons on earth is the Blyde River Canyon in South Africe. It is 16 miles long and averages 2,460 feet in depth.





We see multiple parallel layers. So, when they were originally formed, it was all relatively flat and underwater. These layers covers a vast range of land. Then after all these layers were deposited, massive erosion took place. I don't think any of these statements can be disputed. One questions is the timescale of how fast this sequence of steps occurred. Is it on the order of millions/billions of years? Or was it much faster than that? Also why this sequence? What would cause this? Does SG have any predictive power to explain this sequence?

Yes, but why should this be a surprise? The same erosion and geology and rivers cutting into strata is going on all over the world. If there geology of the Grand canyon does not support a flood -scenario, why should any of these others? Do we have to again go over why the Grand Canyon does not show that it was caused by a flood in a few months but over millions of years of gradual river erosion?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to otseng in post #266]