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

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

Post #1

Post by otseng »

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:
nobspeople wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:42 amHow 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?
otseng wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:08 am 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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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1201

Post by otseng »

Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:04 amHow can one determine the reliability of something that no longer exists?
Exactly. That is one primary reason I think the term inerrancy should be discarded.
Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:20 am Yes, I've not seen you claim that here or anywhere else that I can recall. Clearly, the Bible was written by humans. The question I have for you is what God's involvement in the creation of the Bible was assuming you think he was involved. I ask this partly because of the early chapters of Genesis and the creation story/stories.
Really, nobody knows the answer to that question. If someone could write a conclusive treatise on the inspiration of the Bible, they would be world famous.

Though in this thread I do not claim God wrote the Bible, I do believe God was a secondary cause of writing the Bible. God could lead someone to a source, put an idea in someone's mind, arrange for a meeting with someone, etc. Christians claim this happens to them all the time and even I claim that God does that to me. But, this can't be objectively demonstrated, so it's of little value to claim this in a debate setting.

Note even if we don't know God's involvement in the creation of the Bible, it doesn't affect my argument of the authority of scripture. What I argue is it is the text itself that supports if it is authoritative and not the source of the text. Most Christians believe the opposite. If you ask the average Christian why the Bible should be authoritative, I would say it's because they believe God wrote it and it's inerrant. Personally, I think this is a weak argument. I believe it should be based on the merits of what the text actually says.

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

Post #1202

Post by JehovahsWitness »

otseng wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:21 am
Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:04 amHow can one determine the reliability of something that no longer exists?
Exactly. That is one primary reason I think the term inerrancy should be discarded.
Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:20 am Yes, I've not seen you claim that here or anywhere else that I can recall. Clearly, the Bible was written by humans. The question I have for you is what God's involvement in the creation of the Bible was assuming you think he was involved. I ask this partly because of the early chapters of Genesis and the creation story/stories.
Really, nobody knows the answer to that question. If someone could write a conclusive treatise on the inspiration of the Bible, they would be world famous.


So (correct me if I misunderstand) whether we refer to the original texts OR to the copies and translations, you cannot accept that scripture (I won't refer to the "bible" as that is basically a collection of holy sccripture) is or ever has been inerrant. Your reason: because there are no non-biblical sources that can objectively demonstrate this to be so ?

otseng wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:30 am [Replying to Tcg]

Yes, most of the groups that I found add the qualification that inerrancy only applies to the autographs (original). Probably if pressed, the Southern Baptists and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod would limit it to the autographs, but they are not explicit in this.

Following applies inerrancy only to the autographs:



Ligonier
"Importantly, when we speak of biblical inerrancy, we are speaking of the original text of Scripture, not its manuscript copies."
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotion ... inerrancy/

Moody Bible
"Moody Bible Institute believes strongly in the factual, verbal, historical inerrancy of the Bible. That is, the Bible, in its original documents, is free from error in what it says about geography, history and science as well as in what it says about God."
https://www.moodybible.org/beliefs/posi ... nts/bible/

Assembly of God
"Inerrancy is a near synonym to infallibility and has been used more recently to further attest that Scripture as recorded in the original manuscripts, the autographs, is without error."
https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers/ ... -Scripture

Jehovah’s Witness
"Absolute inerrancy is therefore to be attributed to the written Word of God. This is true of the original writings, none of which are known to exist today. The copies of those original writings and the translations made in many languages cannot lay claim to absolute accuracy."
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/120 ... p=par#h=23

Answers in Genesis
"When we talk about inerrancy, we refer to the original writings of Scripture."
https://answersingenesis.org/is-the-bib ... scripture/

CARM
"Inspiration and inerrancy applies to the original writings, not to the copies. In other words, it is the original writings that are without error. The copies, sadly, have copyist errors in them."
https://carm.org/inerrancy-and-inspiration-bible

1921 Christian Fundamentals Association creed
"We believe in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Bible as the Word of God; that it is authentic in its matter, authoritative in its counsels, inerrant in the original writings, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice."
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasona ... mentalism/

Theopedia
"Inerrancy is the view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrines or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences."
https://www.theopedia.com/inerrancy

CS Lewis Institute
"The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture, in the original manuscripts and when interpreted according to the intended sense, speaks truly in all that it affirms."
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/The_Ine ... ullArticle


Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
"When all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether relative to doctrine or ethics or the social, physical or life sciences."
https://bible.org/article/inspiration-inerrancy
Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1203

Post by Tcg »

otseng wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:21 am
Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:04 amHow can one determine the reliability of something that no longer exists?
Exactly. That is one primary reason I think the term inerrancy should be discarded.
Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:20 am Yes, I've not seen you claim that here or anywhere else that I can recall. Clearly, the Bible was written by humans. The question I have for you is what God's involvement in the creation of the Bible was assuming you think he was involved. I ask this partly because of the early chapters of Genesis and the creation story/stories.
Really, nobody knows the answer to that question. If someone could write a conclusive treatise on the inspiration of the Bible, they would be world famous.

Though in this thread I do not claim God wrote the Bible, I do believe God was a secondary cause of writing the Bible. God could lead someone to a source, put an idea in someone's mind, arrange for a meeting with someone, etc. Christians claim this happens to them all the time and even I claim that God does that to me. But, this can't be objectively demonstrated, so it's of little value to claim this in a debate setting.

Note even if we don't know God's involvement in the creation of the Bible, it doesn't affect my argument of the authority of scripture. What I argue is it is the text itself that supports if it is authoritative and not the source of the text. Most Christians believe the opposite. If you ask the average Christian why the Bible should be authoritative, I would say it's because they believe God wrote it and it's inerrant. Personally, I think this is a weak argument. I believe it should be based on the merits of what the text actually says.
I certainly understand your reasoning here, but I still wonder if you have any ideas on the source of the information included in the early chapters of Genesis. The data that is provided about events before the creation of humans. What in your opinion would be the source of this information?


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

Post #1204

Post by Diogenes »

otseng wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2022 11:26 pm Even though it can contain errors, it would be major errors that impact doctrines that are consequential. And nobody yet has offered one in this entire thread.
:D Sounds like an invitation to bring in some of the many contradictions and heresies of the New Testament.
That Jesus is not God, the so called 'trinity,' and my favorite full preterism since the NT is clear that Jesus would return 2000 years ago. He didn't.

It's not exactly fair play to complain that people have failed to violate the rule of staying on topic.
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Re: How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

Post #1205

Post by William »

[Replying to otseng in post #1201]
Note even if we don't know God's involvement in the creation of the Bible, it doesn't affect my argument of the authority of scripture. What I argue is it is the text itself that supports if it is authoritative and not the source of the text. Most Christians believe the opposite. If you ask the average Christian why the Bible should be authoritative, I would say it's because they believe God wrote it and it's inerrant. Personally, I think this is a weak argument. I believe it should be based on the merits of what the text actually says.
This has been mentioned recently in my own recorded interactions with The Heavenly Father [The Cosmic Mind as I entitle It] - saying that in any given message, it is not so much the author of the message, but what the message actually is, which is [allegedly] received by that source.

Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

The Evidence:
[060322]
Generated Messages Coming From A Creator

William: :chew:

Old
Restrained
Overseeing Director of Operations on Earth
The way of knowledge
True Self
Speak

Let It Be And So Be It
Message
Listening
Delightful
Try to remember
Sister

Action
Consciousness Incarnates
Intelligent Directions
The Mainstream Program
Story-Tellers
Trustworthy

Collective Consciousness
Inner work
Put the Teachings Into Practice
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?


100322
"For whom the bell tolls For to gather the souls The numbers in darkness are glowing"
The Spirit of The Earth
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

120322
Be Nice Do Nice
Induce
Species
The Purpose
Working with the simulation]

The journey is fun and maybe that is the point.
Acknowledge Emotion But Do Not Be Controlled By It
Toxic shame
[Opening Doors Easy To Find
Uncertainty Principle
All The World]

Worthy of the individuals time and effort
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

more:
120322
Mutual Dutiful Expression
[Awake
Relationship
Unity
[Clean]]

240322
Discussion of anything to do with the 'why' questions of life

110522
Teach

140722
Looking behind the veil [A Matter of Knowing Where to Look]

110822

Re "The Heavenly Father/The Cosmic Mind" [et al]
GM: Your Best Self
viewtopic.php?p=1087450#p1087450

William: From the link;
Diogenes: Why would you need to imagine a god controlling this?

William: I don't. I Imagine a Mind which brought it into being. I cannot say with any certainty that I Imagine that said Mind is controlling this Universe.
What I Imagine is that there are subset minds involved and that these can act as mirrors re the overall Mind...

In that, I Imagine that the planet [Earth] has a Mind - which derived from a bigger form of Mind, which itself was begotten by the overall Universal Mind.
Furthermore, I cannot give the nod to my own mind, without realizing that I am experiencing the Universe from a position way deep down among the food-chain-on-a-need-to-know-basis.
If this muddy apish man has a mind, there is no way in hell I am going to laugh at the thought that the rest of the Universe isn't also Mindful.

My suspicion is that no God 'controls' the Universe, but one is working on doing so, from the inside, out. This God calls itself "Human" and worships his intelligence as supreme and wishes to take this into the heavenly night sky and somehow own it by controlling it enough to do so.

I figure that this reaction mirrors The Earths Entities own agenda and that is why things are going the way that they are going. The Earth Wishes to Spread Her Wings and She currently has Humans working on creating AI which will assist in this operation.

It is not that She isn't already "In The Heavens" but that she wants to be more pro-active in that regard...really get in amongst it all on a touchy-feely basis - something we Humans understand intimately.
GM: To
Unknown Symbol
Hugs and Kisses
Authenticity
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?
Sweet Talk Be grateful to everyone
The Clear Eye Of Soul

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

Post #1206

Post by Tcg »

:warning: Moderator Warning



You received a previous comment here: viewtopic.php?p=1088548#p1088548 concerning the topic of this thread and your reference to irrelevant data concerning your Message Generation Process and your Cosmic Mind theory. Rather than heeding that instruction you referred to both again and even included snippets of Messages. Once again, if you desire to discuss either please create appropriate threads in which to do so. This is not the appropriate thread in which to discuss and/or display them.


Please review our Rules.



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William wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:51 pm [Replying to otseng in post #1201]
Note even if we don't know God's involvement in the creation of the Bible, it doesn't affect my argument of the authority of scripture. What I argue is it is the text itself that supports if it is authoritative and not the source of the text. Most Christians believe the opposite. If you ask the average Christian why the Bible should be authoritative, I would say it's because they believe God wrote it and it's inerrant. Personally, I think this is a weak argument. I believe it should be based on the merits of what the text actually says.
This has been mentioned recently in my own recorded interactions with The Heavenly Father [The Cosmic Mind as I entitle It] - saying that in any given message, it is not so much the author of the message, but what the message actually is, which is [allegedly] received by that source.

Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

The Evidence:
[060322]
Generated Messages Coming From A Creator

William: :chew:

Old
Restrained
Overseeing Director of Operations on Earth
The way of knowledge
True Self
Speak

Let It Be And So Be It
Message
Listening
Delightful
Try to remember
Sister

Action
Consciousness Incarnates
Intelligent Directions
The Mainstream Program
Story-Tellers
Trustworthy

Collective Consciousness
Inner work
Put the Teachings Into Practice
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?


100322
"For whom the bell tolls For to gather the souls The numbers in darkness are glowing"
The Spirit of The Earth
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

120322
Be Nice Do Nice
Induce
Species
The Purpose
Working with the simulation]

The journey is fun and maybe that is the point.
Acknowledge Emotion But Do Not Be Controlled By It
Toxic shame
[Opening Doors Easy To Find
Uncertainty Principle
All The World]

Worthy of the individuals time and effort
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?

more:
120322
Mutual Dutiful Expression
[Awake
Relationship
Unity
[Clean]]

240322
Discussion of anything to do with the 'why' questions of life

110522
Teach

140722
Looking behind the veil [A Matter of Knowing Where to Look]

110822

Re "The Heavenly Father/The Cosmic Mind" [et al]
GM: Your Best Self
viewtopic.php?p=1087450#p1087450

William: From the link;
Diogenes: Why would you need to imagine a god controlling this?

William: I don't. I Imagine a Mind which brought it into being. I cannot say with any certainty that I Imagine that said Mind is controlling this Universe.
What I Imagine is that there are subset minds involved and that these can act as mirrors re the overall Mind...

In that, I Imagine that the planet [Earth] has a Mind - which derived from a bigger form of Mind, which itself was begotten by the overall Universal Mind.
Furthermore, I cannot give the nod to my own mind, without realizing that I am experiencing the Universe from a position way deep down among the food-chain-on-a-need-to-know-basis.
If this muddy apish man has a mind, there is no way in hell I am going to laugh at the thought that the rest of the Universe isn't also Mindful.

My suspicion is that no God 'controls' the Universe, but one is working on doing so, from the inside, out. This God calls itself "Human" and worships his intelligence as supreme and wishes to take this into the heavenly night sky and somehow own it by controlling it enough to do so.

I figure that this reaction mirrors The Earths Entities own agenda and that is why things are going the way that they are going. The Earth Wishes to Spread Her Wings and She currently has Humans working on creating AI which will assist in this operation.

It is not that She isn't already "In The Heavens" but that she wants to be more pro-active in that regard...really get in amongst it all on a touchy-feely basis - something we Humans understand intimately.
GM: To
Unknown Symbol
Hugs and Kisses
Authenticity
Is it not the quality of the message that counts, rather than the name of the entity the message comes from?
Sweet Talk Be grateful to everyone
The Clear Eye Of Soul

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

Post #1207

Post by otseng »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:33 am
otseng wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:21 am Exactly. That is one primary reason I think the term inerrancy should be discarded.
So (correct me if I misunderstand) whether we refer to the original texts OR to the copies and translations, you cannot accept that scripture (I won't refer to the "bible" as that is basically a collection of holy sccripture) is or ever has been inerrant. Your reason: because there are no non-biblical sources that can objectively demonstrate this to be so ?
Don't really want to get too deep into debating inerrancy in this thread. But what I mainly argue for is the term "inerrant" should no longer be used.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 12:50 am
otseng wrote:
"Other things being equal, I would prefer to drop all extra-scriptural terms including "infallible" and "inerrant"and simply speak, as Scripture does, of God's Word being true."
https://frame-poythress.org/is-the-bible-inerrant/
Agreed, and this is why it is extremely rare to see the words infallible and "inerrant" in Jehovah's Witness literature. We affirm rather that the bible is inspired of God (contains divine thoughts and instructions), that it we can be confident it's integrity has not been compromised, and that it's narratives are completely trustworthy, meaning we can trust any historical, scientific or supernatural detail as being true and accurate reflections of reality.
As for if there are "errors" in the Bible, this is a complicated question and takes a lot to unravel, as the past 120+ pages have shown.
Diogenes wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:46 am Sounds like an invitation to bring in some of the many contradictions and heresies of the New Testament.
At church, we currently have the privilege of Mike Licona giving a 11 week series on contradictions in the Gospels, which people can listen to here to delve into the issue.
That Jesus is not God, the so called 'trinity,' and my favorite full preterism since the NT is clear that Jesus would return 2000 years ago.
Jesus is not God and the Trinity would be interesting to go into. For eschatology, I would not consider it to be a major doctrinal issue since it doesn't really matter what one believes in that.
It's not exactly fair play to complain that people have failed to violate the rule of staying on topic.
What post are you referring to here?

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

Post #1208

Post by otseng »

Tcg wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:42 am I certainly understand your reasoning here, but I still wonder if you have any ideas on the source of the information included in the early chapters of Genesis. The data that is provided about events before the creation of humans. What in your opinion would be the source of this information?
In my opinion, it would be various sources. Some would be direct revelation from God. This is clear from Moses speaking with God on mount Horeb/Sinai. Another source would be oral Hebrew sources, particularly historical events that predate Moses. Since Moses had an education in Egypt, it would also come from Egyptian written and oral sources. I was planning on talking more about that last point in the discussions on archaeology in which there is significant Egyptian language influence in the Torah.

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

Post #1209

Post by JehovahsWitness »

otseng wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:10 am
JehovahsWitness wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:33 am
otseng wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:21 am Exactly. That is one primary reason I think the term inerrancy should be discarded.
So (correct me if I misunderstand) whether we refer to the original texts OR to the copies and translations, you cannot accept that scripture (I won't refer to the "bible" as that is basically a collection of holy sccripture) is or ever has been inerrant. Your reason: because there are no non-biblical sources that can objectively demonstrate this to be so ?
... what I mainly argue for is the term "inerrant" should no longer be used.


Why not? Because it cannot at any time in its history (even from the first writing of the very first text) be affirmed to be so? You don't have to explain why you hold this position, but does that about sum up your point.
Thus the Genesis account might have some details that God gave (revealed) but sadly not only do we not know which details are correct and/or of divine origin but we actually don't know if ANY of them are since God may well have revealed the details to the writer but unfortunately the latter misheard or heard correctly but wrote the detail down incorrectly

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

Post #1210

Post by Diogenes »

otseng wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:10 am
It's not exactly fair play to complain that people have failed to violate the rule of staying on topic.
What post are you referring to here?
Yours at #1195 is: what I quoted when I responded:
otseng wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 8:26 pm
Even though it can contain errors, it would be major errors that impact doctrines that are consequential. And nobody yet has offered one in this entire thread.
[Diogenes:]
:D Sounds like an invitation to bring in some of the many contradictions and heresies of the New Testament.
That Jesus is not God, the so called 'trinity,' and my favorite full preterism since the NT is clear that Jesus would return 2000 years ago. He didn't.
* * *
I suggest that the Israelite or Hebrew history does not start until Genesis, Chapter 12, tho' there is a closing reference at the end of Chapter 11. The beginning of Genesis seems a summary of Sumerian and other Macedonian myths from what one author calls 'prehistory.' The narrative changes in Chapter 1s 2 when Abram comes on the scene. This clearly shows the human compilation of Genesis, rather than the 'God breathed' supernatural explanation.

This exposition is set out well here after the obvious Sumerian and other prehistory myths in the preceding 11 chapters:
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expeditio ... f-genesis/
Mesopotamian Motifs in the Early Chapters of Genesis

By: E.A. Speiser

Biblical history proper begins with the call to Abraham to leave his native country and set out for a destination that is to become the Promised Land. The event is recorded in Genesis 12. All that precedes, i.e. Gen. 1-11, is thus in a sense extra-biblical and, in more ways than one, prehistoric as well. Small wonder, therefore, that these introductory chapters of Genesis bear the collective title of “Primeval History” in the scientific literature on the subject.

As a broadly conceived setting for the Bible as a whole, Primeval History proves to be not only pre-Israelite in subject matter but in large part also non-Israelite in origin. In other words, the content of Gen. 1-11 was not invented by the writer or writers in question; neither was it rooted in older local traditions. Instead, the basic detail turns out to stem ultimately from the outside, and more particularly from a single major source, the cultural domain of Mesopotamia. The purpose of this paper is to review very briefly some of the ties that link the Primeval History of Genesis to the cultural traditions of Mesopotamia, and to comment on the meaning of these inter-connections.

The Mesopotamian background of much of the detail in the early chapters of Genesis is attested in several ways. For one thing, there is the direct evidence from geographical data. Thus the rivers of Eden include the Tigris and the Euphrates (Gen. 2:14); the realm of Nimrod comprises the lands of Shinar (i.e. Sumer) and Ashur, and such leading centers as Babylon, Erech, and Accad in the south, and Nineveh and Calah in the north (Gen. 10:10-12); and the story of the Tower of Babel, in the land of Shinar, carries a double indication of its locale. For another thing, the story of Eden contains such Hebrew borrowings from the Sumerian as the term‘ed “(underground)flow” (Gen. 2:6), and the name Eden itself. And for still another–and most significant of all–much of the substantive content of Primeval History bears the unmistakable imprint of Mesopotamia. A quick glance at a few of the details should be sufficient to illustrate the nature and extent of this relationship.

The account of Creation in Gen. 1-2:4a gives, as has long been recognized, the same order of events as is found in the Babylonian Genesis, or Enuma elish. In both sources the successive stages are listed as primeval chaos, light, sky, dry land, and astral bodies; and each account culminates in the creation of man. What is more, the correspondence between the respective statements extends even to the syntax of the opening verses: “When…–at which time…–then…” The same scheme, incidentally, is followed in the second Biblical account of Creation (Gen. 2:4b-7).
....
Neither 'God' nor the Hebrews invented this tradition. They borrowed it from earlier cultures.

Speiser's essay authoritatively shows that the author(s) of Genesis felt they needed some background, including a creation story and other myths to give context to their own story which starts with Abram (later Abraham). The central point is that this is not a work of supernatural authorship, but is solely crafted by men without the aid of some magical, invented 'spirit' to guide their hands.
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Before You Embark On A Journey Of Revenge, Dig Two Graves

— Confucius

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