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

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to otseng in post #1609]

I'll give you that the idea of the nail through the wrist has been argued as how it was actually done (no direct evidence has been found) and not as the conventional nail-marks on the hands, which the stigmata saints seem to have got wrong.

[otseng]

It is irrelevant to argue whether it is a medieval forgery or not. What is more relevant is to argue how a flat image could be produced by any method that could look like burial wrapped in a shroud as in the gospels (John aside).

I'll present the theory that I think is the most reasonable one later.

Any effort to evade answering that will look like misdirection and evasion.

Like I said, I'm trying to methodically present my argument. I can as well say everyone is evading all the questions I've been posing on the shroud.

Nota please, that even if this was the burial tweeds of Jesus, flogging and all, that would do no more than be a remarkable relic of a crucified historical Jesus, which i have never contested.

Actually, I think it's remarkable you don't dispute this. But, I would assume the vast majority of skeptics will not even grant this. So, my arguments is basically to get to this point. Then we'll have to debate if Jesus was resurrected.

There, too, the face looks uncannily like the conventional images of Jesus which I really suspect, were derived from Byzantine art styles rather than any real idea of what Jesus looked like. This image suggests being an imitation of conventional Jesus rather than a relic of his.

Actually, it's the other way around. The shroud influenced the Byzantine art. I'll present my arguments later about that when we talk about the history of the shroud.

I'll give you that the idea of the nail through the wrist has been argued as how it was actually done (no direct evidence has been found) and not as the conventional nail-marks on the hands, which the stigmata saints seem to have got wrong.

It is quite interesting that the shroud got it right and all the other artists got it wrong. How would the forger know what was the right way to place the nail wound on the back of the hand?

[otseng]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chri ... aphael.jpg

Another interesting thing about the hands - one hand extends longer than the other. Why would that be the case? It was because his right shoulder was dislocated when he fell while carrying the cross. If it's a forgery, why and how could the artist depict is so well that modern medical examiners could come up with that conclusion? And as far as I can tell, there's no artistic depiction of Jesus having a dislocated shoulder.

The Man of the Shroud “underwent an under glenoidal dislocation of the humerus on the right side and lowering of the shoulder, and has a flattened hand and enophthalmos; conditions that have not been described before, despite several studies on the subject. These injuries indicate that the Man suffered a violent blunt trauma to the neck, chest and shoulder from behind, causing neuromuscular damage and lesions of the entire brachial plexus.”

This is the conclusion four university professors arrived at in an in-depth study they carried out on the image of the crucified Man on the Turin Shroud. They observed that “the posture of the left claw-hand is indicative of an injury of the lower brachial plexus, as is the crossing of the hands on the pubis, not above the pubis as it would normally be, and are related to traction of the limbs as a result of the nailing to the patibulum.”

The first discovery the four experts made, is that the Man of the Shroud underwent a dislocation of the shoulder and paralysis of the right arm. The person whose figure is imprinted on the Shroud is believed to have collapsed under the weight of the cross, or the “patibulum” as it is referred to in the study, the horizontal part of the cross. The Man of the Shroud the academics explain, fell “forwards” and suffered a “violent” knock” “while falling to the ground.” “Neck and shoulder muscle paralysis” were “caused by a heavy object hitting the back between the neck and shoulder and causing displacement of the head from the side opposite to the shoulder depression. In this case, the nerves of the upper brachial plexus (particularly branches C5 and C6) are violently stretched resulting in an Erb-Duchenne paralysis (as occurs in dystocia) because of loss of motor innervation to the deltoid, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, biceps, supinator, brachioradialis and rhomboid muscles.” At this point it would have been impossible for the cross bearer to go on holding it and this brings to mind the passage in the Gospel which describes how the soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to pick up Jesus’ cross. Not an act of compassion therefore, but of necessity. This explains why “the right shoulder is lower than the left by 10±5 degrees” and The right eye is retracted in the orbit” because of the paralysis of the entire arm, the academics say.

The second discovery described in the Injury article is to do with the double nailing of the Man’s hands: Until now, experts could not explain the absence of thumbprints. The four academics can now reveal that “the lack of thumbprints of both hands on the TS is related not only to a lesion of the median nerve that causes only a slight flexion of the thumb, but also, particularly, to the fact that the nail driven into the wrist has pulled or injured the flexor pollicis longus tendon causing its dragging in the hole and the complete retraction of the thumb.”

https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider ... .35751980/

Original paper: https://www.injuryjournal.com/article/S ... 1/fulltext

The Bible mentions Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross.

Luke 23:26 (KJV)
And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear [it] after Jesus.
https://simple.uniquebibleapp.com/bible ... /23#v23_26

But the Bible doesn't explain why he carried it. With the shroud, we see why someone else had to carry the cross. Jesus fell and dislocated his shoulder and was then physically unable to carry the cross any further. So, here's just one example of where the shroud gives additional insight to the Biblical account.

[otseng]

Another thing about the hands. The fingers appear to not simply be a visual depiction of the hand, but an x-ray depiction. It more closely matches what we would see of an x-ray image than a photographic image. And this is not only for the hands, but other parts of the body as well.

The Shroud image suggests quite strongly the presence of many skeletal details e.g. carpal and metacarpal bones, some 22 teeth, eye sockets, left femur, left and possibly right thumbs flexed under the palms of the hands, as well as soft tissue and soft tissue injuries;

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... D_OF_TURIN

Impressions on the shroud of Turin apparently were caused by a natural form of X-ray, a researcher who examined revered cloth says.

'The images are not fake,' Dr. Giles F. Carter, an archaelogical chemist from Eastern Michigan University, said Tuesday.

Carter presented his research results at the 184th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Some researchers have said light may have caused the images, but Carter said X-rays are a more likely source because bones and teeth are visible in the image.

Bones can be seen in the image of the hands, Carter said.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/09/15 ... 400910400/


Jesus The Evidence
TBN documentary, Grizzly Adams Productions, 2001

However, x-ray was not discovered until 1895.

On November 8, 1895, German physics professor Wilhelm Röntgen stumbled on X-rays while experimenting with Lenard tubes and Crookes tubes and began studying them. He wrote an initial report "On a new kind of ray: A preliminary communication" and on December 28, 1895, submitted it to Würzburg's Physical-Medical Society journal.[14] This was the first paper written on X-rays. Röntgen referred to the radiation as "X", to indicate that it was an unknown type of radiation. Some early texts refer to them as Chi-rays having interpreted "X" as the uppercase Greek letter Chi, Χ.[15][16][17] The name X-rays stuck, although (over Röntgen's great objections) many of his colleagues suggested calling them Röntgen rays. They are still referred to as such in many languages, including German, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Danish, Polish, Bulgarian, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Slovenian, Turkish, Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Japanese, Dutch, Georgian, Hebrew, and Norwegian. Röntgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#Dis ... C3%B6ntgen

How would a forger know about x-ray imaging hundreds of years prior to its discovery? Why would he want to create an image that is similar to x-ray imaging even if he knew about it?

[TRANSPONDER]

It is irrelevant to argue whether it is a medieval forgery or not. What is more relevant is to argue how a flat image could be produced by any method that could look like burial wrapped in a shroud as in the gospels (John aside).

I'll present the theory that I think is the most reasonable one later.

Any effort to evade answering that will look like misdirection and evasion.

Like I said, I'm trying to methodically present my argument. I can as well say everyone is evading all the questions I've been posing on the shroud.

Nota please, that even if this was the burial tweeds of Jesus, flogging and all, that would do no more than be a remarkable relic of a crucified historical Jesus, which i have never contested.

Actually, I think it's remarkable you don't dispute this. But, I would assume the vast majority of skeptics will not even grant this. So, my arguments is basically to get to this point. Then we'll have to debate if Jesus was resurrected.

There, too, the face looks uncannily like the conventional images of Jesus which I really suspect, were derived from Byzantine art styles rather than any real idea of what Jesus looked like. This image suggests being an imitation of conventional Jesus rather than a relic of his.

Actually, it's the other way around. The shroud influenced the Byzantine art. I'll present my arguments later about that when we talk about the history of the shroud.

I'll give you that the idea of the nail through the wrist has been argued as how it was actually done (no direct evidence has been found) and not as the conventional nail-marks on the hands, which the stigmata saints seem to have got wrong.

It is quite interesting that the shroud got it right and all the other artists got it wrong. How would the forger know what was the right way to place the nail wound on the back of the hand?

This is likely to be very much debated. It is likely thatr this is not just a washed out painting (It was Laundered back in the day!) and there is the medieval C14 date, which is disputed, but that it is an artefact that was an Icon of Byzantium is a hypothesis with nothing much as evidence to support it, but you go for it. The best case is as you sated it; so much is right.Even the long hair that may be linked to Jewish practice of the time but a medieval factor would hardly think of. It's with this in mind that I have think 'what if it is?'and have the fallback position of 'so Jesus was crucified. I never disputed that'. With the rider that someone must have gone in the tomb and taken thhe shroud out, and what more likely than wrapped around the body?

Which is the main objection - this is not a wrap - around image. I can't think of any but the most far -fetched apologetic to get around this.

Also I will need some convincing that the image is an X -ray. Why the hands and not the rest? The hands look more like a contact image with just the upper extremes of the fingers showing, which would look like the finger - bones and would explain why the thumbs are not visible. Beware of people finding images of coins in what are blank eye holes where there was no impression, and the like 'eye of faith' stuff.

[brunumb]

It is quite interesting that the shroud got it right and all the other artists got it wrong. How would the forger know what was the right way to place the nail wound on the back of the hand?

That assumes that the mark is the result of an alleged nail wound.

Not knowing how the image was produced is not evidence that the image was not produced by natural processes. There is so much wrong with the image and that does count as evidence for it not being produced through wrapping of a human corpse according to Jewish tradition of the time. The cloth is around 4.5m long and the corpse would need to have been laid along one half and the other half folded over and draped on top. Hardly wrapped in 'strips' as described. Also, the body was washed and anointed with around 75 pounds of spiced ointments. There should be no blood as dead bodies do not bleed, while the linen should have been heavily impregnated with the ointments used.

The anatomy is also wrong, unless Jesus was a grotesquely deformed human being.

Evidence #5: The image on the Turin Shroud has unrealistic anatomical features that are consistent with Gothic artwork, but not with real human anatomy.
https://tinyurl.com/6nkrx9m2

The discussion of the unrealistic anatomical features is too long to post here. You will notice that it is Evidence #5 in the link provided. The discussion of why the shroud is a fake is very detailed and quite compelling in my book.

There is another interesting hypothesis involving the material being used to wrap an alabaster pillar with the Fisher King’s image carved on it. This helps explain the traces of gypsum found and the appearance of the image. Fascinating theory.
https://tinyurl.com/yc7s4ck5

[otseng]

It is likely thatr this is not just a washed out painting (It was Laundered back in the day!)

Yes, so it cannot be a painting.

Even the long hair that may be linked to Jewish practice of the time but a medieval factor would hardly think of.

Yes, it would be one of the things that medieval artists would not have thought of.

With the rider that someone must have gone in the tomb and taken thhe shroud out, and what more likely than wrapped around the body?

This is not likely either, but I'll present that later.

Also I will need some convincing that the image is an X -ray. Why the hands and not the rest?

I think it's another clue as to how the image got formed. It is only the top most extremities (finger bones, front teeth) that are more readily identifiable.

The hands look more like a contact image with just the upper extremes of the fingers showing, which would look like the finger - bones and would explain why the thumbs are not visible.

That does not explain the bones in the palm and the wrist as evidenced in the video. Also, I'll present more evidence later that the image could not be produced by contact.

Beware of people finding images of coins in what are blank eye holes where there was no impression, and the like 'eye of faith' stuff.

Yes, there are claims of coins placed on top of the eyes. But I don't think there's a strong case for that and it's not something I'll be presenting as primary evidence.

But, the eyes are interesting to me with the effect of the eyes as being open and looking straight into you. They don't give the effect of the closed eyes of a dead Jesus as portrayed by artists.


https://shroudphotos.com/gallery/page/2/

[otseng]

That assumes that the mark is the result of an alleged nail wound.

What else are you suggesting it is?

Not knowing how the image was produced is not evidence that the image was not produced by natural processes.

What we can do is investigate all known natural processes. If none are viable, then extranatural explanations can be entertained. As I've argued, we've already seen this in the area of cosmology.

The cloth is around 4.5m long and the corpse would need to have been laid along one half and the other half folded over and draped on top. Hardly wrapped in 'strips' as described.

I'm assuming you are referring to this:

John 19:40 (KJV)
Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
https://simple.uniquebibleapp.com/bible ... /19#v19_40

Yes, the shroud was folded in half and covered the entire back and front of the body. But, the shroud cloth was originally two pieces, not one. This is evidenced from another weave that sewed the main cloth and the side strip together.

The side strip on the Shroud of Turin, the apparent seam separating it from the rest of the cloth, and the two missing panels of cloth at the top and bottom of this strip that reveal the underlying backing cloth have long been a subject of interest and speculation to sindonologists.

Figure 1 (below) shows a portion of the x-radiograph of the section of the Shroud's frontal image displaying the end edge of the side strip, the missing panel with the exposed backing cloth, and the seam between the strip and the rest of the Shroud.

https://www.shroud.com/adler2.htm

It is most likely this side strip was wrapped around the body with the shroud to hold it all together.

Dr. John Jackson explains his theory in this BBC documentary:


I'll address the rest later...

[otseng]

There should be no blood as dead bodies do not bleed, while the linen should have been heavily impregnated with the ointments used. The anatomy is also wrong, unless Jesus was a grotesquely deformed human being.

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/ ... ly-a-hoax/

Also, can add that old blood should not be red. So, how can these be accounted for?

First, it's generally accepted it is real blood on the shroud.

From a forensic point of view, the blood marks are
macroscopically consistent with blood, except for the
color which is too red for centuries-old blood.

The “blood” is real blood: it does contain all the
molecular components of blood (iron, amount of iron
consistent with real blood, iron specifically attached to
heme, porphyrins, human serum including proteins, albu-
min, and finally high levels of bilirubin) as demonstrated
by microscopy, microspectroscopy, microchemistry and
immunology.

https://www.academia.edu/29775791/Foren ... Shroud_Man


The redness of the blood is theorized to be caused by high levels of bilirubin.

The blood also contains very unusual high amounts of
bilirubin. This fact was not expected before the
experiments but can be understood if a quick and large
hemolysis occurred as should be the case for Roman
scourging.

To explain that, Adler wrote that
the blood on the Shroud is not whole blood but exudates
(Adler, 1986) that left an imprint during the clotting
process on the corpse. In blood, almost all the potassium
is inside the red cells which remained on the body during
the clotting process. Adler (1986) wrote: “But a torture,
scourging and crucifixion leading to shock - that would
produce a tremendous hemolysis. In less than 30 s, the
hemolyzed hemoglobin will run through the liver, building
up very high bilirubin content in the blood. If that blood
then clots, the exudates forms, and all the intact cells with
hemoglobin stay behind, only the hemolyzed hemoglobin
goes out along with the serum albumin which binds the
bilirubin…. The blood has no cells, is very low in
potassium and has the right color and composition for the
blood of a man who was severely flogged and crucified”.

https://www.academia.edu/29775791/Foren ... Shroud_Man

There are some theories as to why there is blood from a corpse. One is remelting of a clot.

Yet, another transfer mechanism, which
does not involve washing, has been proposed, namely
the aforementioned blood clots’ ability to redissolve after
clotting by so-called external fibrinolytic activity that, so to
say, melts a clot enabling it to make a blood imprint.

https://www.academia.edu/29775791/Foren ... Shroud_Man

Another involves washing of the body would cause the blood patterns on the shroud.

If the deceased individual had not been washed, these well-defined wound patterns depicted on the Shroud could not be present. First of all, most of the blood within the scourge wounds of the victim would have been clotted and the blood located both at the periphery and outside of the wounds would have dried long before the victim was placed on the cross.

However, if the body was washed, the dried blood around the wounds would be removed causing an oozing of bloody material within the wounds resulting in the production of relatively good impressions of the wound.

https://www.shroud.com/zugibe2.htm

Distortions of the face can be due to several factors, including resulting from a banding artifact.

The face seems to be too narrow. This
observation seems correct, but is actually due to banding
of the Shroud texture. More faint but still present on the
left side of the face it is possible in a facsimile image to
follow the protruding eyebrow and cheek continuing
lateral from the very sharp band border of a long line in
the texture.

https://www.academia.edu/29775791/Foren ... Shroud_Man

Also, cloth is pliable and stretchable. It cannot be expected to maintain fixed dimensions during the entire life of the cloth, especially since it's been handled multiple times and been under various environmental conditions.

As for being anatomically inaccurate, I don't think you can compare Diogo Morgado, who is a Portugese modern man, to the image on the shroud, who is supposed to be a Jew in the first century.

As for being anatomically correct, we can now view what the body would've looked like in 3 dimensions based on research on the shroud.

Starting today, Salamanca Cathedral is hosting the exhibition of the first hyper-realistic recreation of the body of Christ based on data obtained from the Shroud of Turin.

The sculpture, made of latex and silicone, weighs about 165 pounds.

The posture is of the deceased Christ in rigor mortis. The legs are somewhat bent, hands crossed at the level of the pubis. There is no false modesty in the figure. The entire body of the man on the Shroud is visible, nothing omitted, including circumcision.

The hyper-realistic sculpture tries to present before the viewer a “body of human quality without artistic movement,” without interpretation, made from multidisciplinary scientific data based on studies on the Holy Shroud.

The curator of the exhibition, Álvaro Blanco, who dedicated more than 15 years of research into its realization, gives a lengthy prior explanation of the historical and scientific data that culminates in the hyper-realistic body.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news ... t-in-spain

15 years of research into the Holy Shroud of Turin culminate in a hyperrealistic recreation of the Man in the Shroud.
The Holy Shroud is a relic, believed to have been used to wrap the body of Jesus Christ after his death. For years, it has been challenging scientists and theologians to explain its mysteries—such as how the image of a man’s face could have been created on its cloth without the use of pigments.

https://themysteryman.com/en/the-mystery-man/

As for ointment used for burial, John says:

John 19:39 (KJV)
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound [weight.]
https://simple.uniquebibleapp.com/bible ... /19#v19_39

More than likely it was used to wash the body, not simply applied on the body so that it became 100 pounds heavier. So, not much of it would've remained on the body after the washing and anointing.

There is another interesting hypothesis involving the material being used to wrap an alabaster pillar with the Fisher King’s image carved on it. This helps explain the traces of gypsum found and the appearance of the image. Fascinating theory.
https://tinyurl.com/yc7s4ck5

There are many flaws with this theory. But we'll have to come back to this later.

[TRANSPONDER]

It is likely thatr this is not just a washed out painting (It was Laundered back in the day!)

Yes, so it cannot be a painting.

Even the long hair that may be linked to Jewish practice of the time but a medieval factor would hardly think of.

Yes, it would be one of the things that medieval artists would not have thought of.

With the rider that someone must have gone in the tomb and taken thhe shroud out, and what more likely than wrapped around the body?

This is not likely either, but I'll present that later.

Also I will need some convincing that the image is an X -ray. Why the hands and not the rest?

I think it's another clue as to how the image got formed. It is only the top most extremities (finger bones, front teeth) that are more readily identifiable.

The hands look more like a contact image with just the upper extremes of the fingers showing, which would look like the finger - bones and would explain why the thumbs are not visible.

That does not explain the bones in the palm and the wrist as evidenced in the video. Also, I'll present more evidence later that the image could not be produced by contact.

Beware of people finding images of coins in what are blank eye holes where there was no impression, and the like 'eye of faith' stuff.

Yes, there are claims of coins placed on top of the eyes. But I don't think there's a strong case for that and it's not something I'll be presenting as primary evidence.

But, the eyes are interesting to me with the effect of the eyes as being open and looking straight into you. They don't give the effect of the closed eyes of a dead Jesus as portrayed by artists.


https://shroudphotos.com/gallery/page/2/

I reckon we don't have an x - ray here. You can bet on that because there is no skull, but a face. What it looks to me like is a contact print. Just touching the body, producing the (negative) marks of eyelids (claimed as coins) the tops of the finger - lengths, claimed as finger - bones (explaining why the thumbs aren't seen) and the lower lip, mentioned by you as teeth. The eyelids are closed, and the image of the the eyes open and looking at you is imagination, old mate. The effect is of a rather peaceful dead face, eyes closed. I didn't see wrist bones, but I'll look again. No.I thinks that's the eye of faith.

Now, what it resembles to me is a contact print, and in fact a cloth lightly laid over a very hot metal or perhaps clay image producing light scorch marks. Front and back. Now, wearing my theist hat, I would claim that is an accurate image of Jesus producing a sudden burst of heat in a flash of a second at resurrection. One of the shroud apologists compared it to nuclear explosion shadows, but a hot contact print is more how it looks to me. Not a wrapped shroud but laid under and over. That is the only way the image works.

I get the point about the nail through the wrist. You don't need to keep telling me. But you need to explain why it isn't a wrap - around image and also refute the idea of the body, still in the shroud, being removed by human agency. Oh and a case for Byzantine art being based on this shroud, rather than the art of the time (including the shroud - face) taking the cue from Byzantine art.