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

[otseng]

The question I have though, is that if God did provide a direct revelation about these six days of creation, shouldn't we expect it to be scientifically accurate where it does touch on science or rather scientific concepts and knowledge?

Personally, I think we should. Though Genesis 1 is presented in a literary style and can be read metaphorically, I think in a deeper level, it should match reality. And I argue we do see that.

On the outset, the Bible claims the universe was created, thus implying a beginning. Science has not always believed there was a beginning to the universe. Scientists have historically balked at the idea of the universe having a beginning in time since it would support the Biblical account. And it has only been in the past century that scientists have accepted a beginning to the universe.

Since God is the creator of everything, it leads to God designing everything. We could go on forever talking about design in the universe from the atomic level to the galactic level. If we want to get into that evidence, I'm sure that would rival anything else we've talked about so far in scope. In fact, the evidence is so overwhelming that it leads secular scientists to broach into extra-naturalism with exotic theories such as the multiverse.

The Bible paints a picture that God uniquely created humans (and other life as well) and they did not arise through an evolutionary process. This is another huge area to debate in.

As for everything created in 6 literal days, I do lean towards that. Explaining that is complicated, but I don't think it's necessary for now to discuss. We have people across the board that have varying views on it. From what I've seen, a literal 6 day reading is in the minority among professional scholars and apologists and they mostly read that as metaphorical.

[brunumb]

Scientists have historically balked at the idea of the universe having a beginning in time since it would support the Biblical account.

Is that just your opinion or do you have a verifiable source for that claim?

[JehovahsWitness]

Let me ask you this, do you think our Bible translations are inerrant or errant?

First define what you mean by inerrant.

First define what you mean by inerrant.

To read more please go to other posts related to...

BIBLICAL INERRANCY , COMPILATION and ... AUTHORSHIP & TRANSMISSION

[Diogenes]

The question I have though, is that if God did provide a direct revelation about these six days of creation, shouldn't we expect it to be scientifically accurate where it does touch on science or rather scientific concepts and knowledge?

Exactly! Apologists go to extreme lengths to deny the Bible describes a flat, domed Earth as the center of the universe. But when it looks like that is precisely what the Bible does describe, suddenly "The Bible wasn't intended to be a science book." Why argue about it being accurate in the first place?
The disingenuousness of claiming the Bible is accurate and does not lie, only to move the goal posts when those many errors are shown, is telling.

We see the same thing with the pages and pages of attempts to prove, by archeology that the Exodus somehow fits into history perfectly, when the foremost experts reveal there is no evidence it does. Apologists are then forced to use 3d rate, biased movies as sources. Then finally, "Well... the Bible is not a book on archeology."

That a god, any god built the world in six days, is obviously meant as a myth to explain creation, just as Babel is a myth to describe different languages. But why would God, the creator of the universe, describe his creation so completely erroneously" The claim is preposterous on its face.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if Genesis described a billions of years process with the Sun at the center of only one of many galaxies and the Earth one of several balls circling it, the apologists would proudly site this as proof of God. But no, the Bible describes the world as it appeared to be to most folk at the time it was written.

If the book said, "Joshua made the Sun appear to stand still for a day to terrify their enemies" apologists would be jumping up and down yelling "Proof!" Instead we get "Meh. It doesn't matter. God was concerned with other stuff."

This is as wild as the unfounded claim that scientists purposely make claims because they care what the Bible says or does not say. Scientists don't give a fig about what the Bible or any other book of fables says. Scientists look for evidence.

_______________
Charles Norman used to quote a rabbi as saying something like...
"The Torah is the Word of God, and some of it may have actually happened."

[William]

Scientists have historically balked at the idea of the universe having a beginning in time since it would support the Biblical account.

Is that just your opinion or do you have a verifiable source for that claim?

Regardless - mainstream materialist scientists bulk at a lot of theistic ideas, biblical or otherwise...

One example of this is discussed @ 24:00...

[brunumb]

Scientists have historically balked at the idea of the universe having a beginning in time since it would support the Biblical account.

Is that just your opinion or do you have a verifiable source for that claim?

Regardless - mainstream materialist scientists bulk at a lot of theistic ideas, biblical or otherwise...

My concern was more about the alleged justification for it. Was it rejected because it would support the Biblical account. Balking at theistic ideas because they are considered to be scientifically wrong is a separate issue.

[otseng]

Scientists have historically balked at the idea of the universe having a beginning in time since it would support the Biblical account.

Is that just your opinion or do you have a verifiable source for that claim?

How Anti-Religious Bias Prevented Scientists from Accepting the Big Bang

Today, the Big Bang model of cosmology is pretty much taken for Gospel, and for good reason. For more than fifty years, evidence gathered from all manner of sources has supported the notion that the Universe as we know it expanded from an infinitely dense singularity.

But things didn't always look so certain for the Big Bang. In its most nascent form, the idea was known as the hypothesis of the primeval atom, and it originated from an engineer turned soldier turned mathematician turned Catholic priest turned physicist by the name of Georges Lemaître. When Lemaître published his idea in the eminent journal Nature in 1931, a response to observational data suggesting that space was expanding, he ruffled a lot of feathers. As UC-San Diego professor of physics Brian Keating wrote in his recent book Losing the Nobel Prize, "Lemaître's model... upset the millennia-old orthodoxy of an eternal, unchanging cosmos. It clearly implied that everything had been smaller and denser in the past, and that the universe must itself have had a birth at a finite time in the past."

Besides questioning the status quo, Lemaître's primeval atom also had some glaring problems. For starters, there were hardly any means of testing it, a must for any would-be scientific theory. Moreover, it essentially suggested that all the matter in the Universe came from nothing, a flabbergasting claim. It also violated an accepted notion known as the perfect cosmological principle, which suggested that the Universe looks the same from any given point in space and time.

For these reasons, English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle gathered with a few colleagues to formulate the Steady State theory of the cosmos. The idea kept the observable universe essentially the same in space and time, and it accounted for evidence suggesting that the universe is expanding by hypothesizing that matter is instead being created out of the fabric of space in between distant galaxies. Steady State didn't have the problems inherent to the notion of a primeval atom, and, as Keating wrote "it sure as hell didn't look like the creation narrative in Genesis 1:1."

As Keating continued, anti-religious sentiments provided underlying motivation to debunk Lemaître's theory.

Hoyle, however, did not. Over the decades, as more and more evidence lined up in favor of the Big Bang and against Steady State, the aging astronomer dug in his heels. Ironically, he behaved like the believing zealots he scorned, relentlessly defending his debunked theory until his death in 2001. Lemaître, on the other hand, remained humble and equivocal about the Big Bang throughout his life.

This scientific saga demonstrates that entrenched beliefs affect the nonreligious as well as the religious. In the end, bias should always bow to evidence.

https://www.space.com/40586-anti-religi ... -bang.html

[otseng]

Let me ask you this, do you think our Bible translations are inerrant or errant?

First define what you mean by inerrant.

First define what you mean by inerrant.

My position is the term is meaningless and it should not be used, so it's not my burden to define what I think it means.

So, to return my original question back to you, do you think our Bible translations are inerrant or errant?

Of course, whatever answer you give will be problematic. If you say it's inerrant, then it is against the definition since scholars define the term as only applying to the autographs. If you say it's errant, then you are admitting there are errors in the Bible.

My argument in dropping the term inerrancy is it leads to conundrums such as this.

[otseng]

The question I have though, is that if God did provide a direct revelation about these six days of creation, shouldn't we expect it to be scientifically accurate where it does touch on science or rather scientific concepts and knowledge?

Exactly! Apologists go to extreme lengths to deny the Bible describes a flat, domed Earth as the center of the universe.

I didn't really didn't have to go to much length to expose the fallacy of this charge. Especially since no evidence has been presented to support this except repeating this myth from others.

The disingenuousness of claiming the Bible is accurate and does not lie, only to move the goal posts when those many errors are shown, is telling.

Uh, where did I claim the Bible is accurate and does not lie? If the goal post was never there, how can you claim it has been moved?

We see the same thing with the pages and pages of attempts to prove, by archeology that the Exodus somehow fits into history perfectly, when the foremost experts reveal there is no evidence it does.

People had plenty of opportunities to refute my claims, but at the end, nobody participated. I'm more than happy to reengage in archaeology to debate the evidence.

[Diogenes]

The question I have though, is that if God did provide a direct revelation about these six days of creation, shouldn't we expect it to be scientifically accurate where it does touch on science or rather scientific concepts and knowledge?

Exactly! Apologists go to extreme lengths to deny the Bible describes a flat, domed Earth as the center of the universe.

I didn't really didn't have to go to much length to expose the fallacy of this charge. Especially since no evidence has been presented to support this except repeating this myth from others.

Wrong. You seized on one issue, the flat Earth aspect, re: THE CHURCH's issue, not the Bible's description of a flat Earth. You are ignoring the obvious geocentric description in the Bible and came up with a lame, esoteric, personal translation of the firmament. You never addressed the "waters above and the waters below." You never addressed the ascension of Jesus 'up' to Heaven which is a clear and plain reference to a flat Earth with a heaven above. You have failed to address Joshua "making the Sun stand still."

More importantly you have not dealt with the the time problem.

The Bible provides a reliable history of the universe and the events described in the Bible, particularly in the early chapters of Genesis, providing a framework through which we can interpret science and history.
Event Date
Creation 4004 BC
The Flood 2348 BC
Tower of Babel 2246 BC
Abraham 1996 BC
Joseph 1745 BC
Moses and the Exodus 1491 BC
David 1085 BC
Monarchy Divides 975 BC
Assyrian Destruction of Israel 722 BC
Babylonian Captivity of Judah 586 BC
Jesus 4 BC

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/
This is what the Bible teaches.

These are the facts:
Homo Sapiens appeared approximately 200,000 years ago.
Beautiful cave paintings were discovered in Altamira, Spain that date to 35,000 years ago, 30,000 years before 'Adam.' You might enjoy the movie:

By reanalysing human skull fragments discovered four decades ago in Greece, an international team of researchers now believe that an early modern human migration out of Africa may have reached Europe by at least 210,000 years ago.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/201 ... -than.html

BTW, one of my favorite lines from the movies comes up at about 13 minutes in: when Spencer Tracy asks "Was that Eastern Standard Time...?"
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieS ... ewind.html