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

[otseng]

Just another post for this thread,....I still haven't, totally calmed down, osteng. This comes to mind...

Irrelevant ranting and preaching comes to mind with your posts. If you want to contribute anything relevant to the TS that contains rational argumentation and evidence with a reference, please do so. Otherwise, it would be just more ranting and preaching.

[Thomas123]

otseng:If you want to contribute anything relevant to the TS that contains rational argumentation and evidence with a reference, please do so

My personal perspective on this is....

This thread is not about the TS.

You have diverted this thread down a never ending cul-de-sac, because of a peculiar obstinacy. If you really believe ,in your heart soul and mind that this is the image of the Christ then I apologize for my lack of empathy.

You bear the responsibility of Creator of this debate forum on your shoulders.

My Matthew 23, quote is relevant to the subject in hand, ie the pitfalls of biblical interpretation as per the threads original remit.

[otseng]

otseng:If you want to contribute anything relevant to the TS that contains rational argumentation and evidence with a reference, please do so

My personal perspective on this is....

This thread is not about the TS.

As the creator of both this forum and this thread, I think I would know more than you about how things work here and this thread. So, again, please cease from just posting your personal opinions.

[otseng]

As to Pope Ratzinger, whose allegiance was to Nazi Germany until 1945,

Created the thread Was Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi sympathizer? to discuss this.

[otseng]

When they were unveiling the shroud, cutting from it, and putting the samples into the vials for the labs, the entire process was supposed to be filmed. But this did not happen.

The entire procedure was filmed except for the most critical point -- when the samples were placed into the vials. There is no video evidence to confirm what got placed into the vials. And strangely, they did this also in a separate room where only a few people attended.

The samples of the Shroud and those brought by Tite, one dating back to the first century and the other to the eleventh century, were introduced in small metal cylinders. The operation took place in the adjacent capitular room at the sole presence of Tite, Gonella and Ballestrero. This delicate moment was not filmed, unlike what was settled in the London protocol.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/marinelliv.pdf

The samples were then taken to the adjacent Sala Capitolare where they were wrapped in aluminium foil and subsequently sealed inside numbered stainless-steel containers by the Archbishop of Turin and Dr Tite.

All these operations, except for the wrapping of the samples in foil and their placing in containers, were fully documented by video film and photography.

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

Testore commented regarding the packaging of the samples, "There was something we didn't understand: when - how - the three samples were put into their containers. There was only Cardinal Ballestrero and Tite, the director of the British Museum - that was all - in a separate room from where we were. But they came back and sealed them in public. "

https://www.academia.edu/35676836/Polit ... Dating_N25

As admitted by Tite, the entire process of putting the samples in a separate room was "illogical" and "unnecessary". Why go into a separate room with only a few people? Why prevent video recording of this? What were they trying to hide?

The Shroud samples and the two control samples brought by Tite were put into small metal cylinders in the adjacent capitular room (of the Cathedral) in the presence of Tite, Gonella and Cardinal Ballestrero. Inexplicably, this significant action was not filmed, even though it had been mandated at the London meeting in January.

Tite also asserted that the filming of the sample packaging would have only been a "memorandum, not intended to be an identification proof for the samples, of which he and the Cardinal were guarantors." He also admitted that moving to a separate room for the packaging, was "quite unnecessary."

The non-filming of the samples being put in the containers, despite the fact that the London meeting had dictated that it should, and the fact that there was about sixteen hours of film of the rest of the events, feeds into the suspicion about a sample switch. Tite's comments about the "illogical" and "unnecessary" procedures are a cause for head-scratching.

http://newvistas.homestead.com/POLITICS ... UD_PT2.pdf

It was not to prevent the labs from knowing what was in the vials. At this point, everyone already knew there would be no blind testing. The process of "secrecy" was more play acting, rather than of any scientific use.

The whole procedure of secretly distributing the specimens in the small, screw-capped containers was a farce. This play-acting was no use even for the benefit of the press and public. The BBC film team was present in Wolfli's laboratory when he broke the seals of his three containers and laid out the cloth pieces before him, and anyone could see which one belonged to the Turin Shroud. It was rather poor play-acting, and unnecessary. It is astonishing that these crucial events were not better planned, if only to fool the public. Or had some crude blunder occurred during the planning? This secret distribution of specimens would only have made any sense if, as Prof Raes remarked, the fabric pieces had been unthreaded before being placed in the containers. Then the scientists in their laboratories could not have distinguished the experimental specimen from the control specimens.

http://newvistas.homestead.com/POLITICS ... UD_PT3.pdf

There's no logical reason they'd go into a separate room and have no evidence of what samples got placed into the vials except for the purpose of hiding something.

[otseng]

According to the official Nature C-14 report, each lab got ~50 mg of the shroud sample.

"Three samples, each ~50 mg in weight, were prepared from this strip."
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

But on closer inspection, the weights for each given specimen varies.

Italian researcher Marinelli said, "Also, regards the weights, there later were pronouncements that gave different weights. Dr. Bollone of the Turin Centro commented, "These weights do not correspond with what is seen on the scales used to weigh the material at the time of the sampling. As far as I'm aware, these inconsistencies have never been explained." The actual measurements of the 3 samples were shown as: 52.0 mg. for first sample, 52.8 mg for 2nd sample and 53.7 mg in two parts for 3rd sample (which went to Arizona).

https://www.academia.edu/35676836/Polit ... Dating_N25



The weights of the samples as recorded when the samples were placed into the vials were 52.0. 52.8, and 53.7.

But, it's strange that only one lab got a sample with a matching weight. And strangely two labs got a vial that had the same weight.

The Zurich lab recorded their sample as weiging 52.8.
The Arizona lab also recorded their sample as weiging 52.8.
Oxford lab recorded their sample as weighing 50.0 mg.

https://www.shroud.com/vanhels5.pdf

In their reports, presented at the congress held in Paris in 1989, Riggi and Testore unanimously reported the measure 8.1 cm x 1.6 cm and the same pattern, which states that the weight of the taken sample was 0.497 g; however, in the text Riggi writes that the weight was 0.540 g and then writes that the weight was 0.4775 g. Anyway, being the unit weight of the Shroud cloth 0.023 g/cm^2 , the weight of the removed fragment (8.1 cm x 1.6 cm) should have been approximately 0.300 g, weight which instead is attributed to the sample reduced in size to 7 cm x 1 cm.

Riggi said: “By chance it happens that each of these three parts is identical to the others because the weight of the three fragments on an electronic balance varied by about a thousandth of a gram per piece and was almost equivalent to 0.053 g on average for each sample”. In the second version, however, Testore states that the portion chosen for the subdivision into three parts was not the largest but the smallest (0.1448 g). The three pieces respectively weighed 0.0520 g, 0.0528 g and 0.0396 g. Not to discriminate the one laboratory, which would have received slightely less material, another piece of 0.0141 g was taken from the other half of the sample, the one kept in store. This second version will be confirmed later by Riggi himself.

The inconsistency about weights and measurements of the Shroud samples gave way to suspicions of substitution of the cloth fragments. The rejection of this hypothesis by chemist Eberhard Lindner raised the reactions by theologian Holger Kersten and psychologist Elmar Gruber, who said there must have been a swindle. Chemist Piero Savarino, professor of Industrial Organic Chemistry at Turin University, said: “Unfortunately, a set of facts, or rather of deficiencies and carelessness, leaves the suspicion survive”.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/marinelliv.pdf

Having weights measured properly and consistently should be the most basic skill in a scientific procedure. Yet, we see this was even violated in the C-14 dating process.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1891]

Having weights measured properly and consistently should be the most basic skill in a scientific procedure. Yet, we see this was even violated in the C-14 dating process.

I'd trust the individual labs to do the correct weight measurements ... not whoever prepared the samples before they were received by the labs which isn't really relevant. Is there evidence to suggest that the individual lads had errors in their sample weight measurements prior to the analysis?

[otseng]

I'd trust the individual labs to do the correct weight measurements ... not whoever prepared the samples before they were received by the labs which isn't really relevant. Is there evidence to suggest that the individual lads had errors in their sample weight measurements prior to the analysis?

The issue is not being able to weigh the samples. I'm assuming everyone knows how to weigh samples. The issue is the difference between the weights when the samples were placed into the vials (the top part of the above figure) and the samples that were received by the labs (the bottom part of the above figure). Why should there be such a discrepancy?

[otseng]

When the labs got their samples, they did not properly document their samples with photographs. Also, during the pretreatment, no labs had reported their samples contained contamination or how much there were. So, all the labs were not rigorous in carrying out the initial steps of the dating.

What is surprising to learn is that, once they had brought the vials back to their respective labs, very little scrutiny of the sample was carried out. Not one lab photographed the samples they received properly, i.e. both sides and with a scale. The samples were examined under a microscope, and a few alien fibers picked out, but no lab reported anything suspicious, even though later a STURP chemist found that threads from the adjacent Raes sample had high levels of aluminum, a high occurrence of cotton fiber intermingled with the linen, some kind of coating or encrustation, a high degree of oxidation, and FTIR spectra markedly different from threads elsewhere on the Shroud. Certainly the labs were not in a position to know all the results of all previous investigations of the Shroud, but they could have consulted with STURP personnel, or they could have requested comparison fibers from other parts of the Shroud. The fact that they did neither indicates an over-confidence in their ability to date the samples through standard procedures.

http://newvistas.homestead.com/POLITICS ... UD_PT2.pdf

As mentioned before, it was not a blind test, so it was obvious to the labs which sample was from the shroud. The primary reason they could identify it was the herringbone weave on the cloth. But, this could've been addressed by unravelling or shredding the samples. It's not like they needed an intact cloth to test it because the AMS process would be burning the entire specimen.

Curiously, the official report justified it by saying it would make it more "difficult and wasteful".

With unravelled or shredded samples, pretreatment cleaning would have been more difficult and wasteful.

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

I don't know what this would mean unless there were a lot of contaminants or spurious material in the sample. But, how would they have known that before they sent it to the labs? And how difficult is it to do pretreatment to an unravelled cloth? What exactly would be wasted by pretreating threads?

Also, the lack of finding a herringbone weave cloth as a control is evidence this cloth could not have been medieval. We have no archaeological artifacts of any linen cloth with a herringbone weave from the middle ages.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1893]

The issue is not being able to weigh the samples. I'm assuming everyone knows how to weigh samples. The issue is the difference between the weights when the samples were placed into the vials (the top part of the above figure) and the samples that were received by the labs (the bottom part of the above figure). Why should there be such a discrepancy?

I agree there should not be a discrepancy, but the point was that it is the sample weight prior to the AMS measurements that counts. If they got this right, then the weight discrepancy would have no impact on the C-14 measurements. It appears the testing labs didn't pay much attention to how the samples were prepared, where they came from on the shroud, etc. and simply treated the samples like they would any other sample submitted for testing ... relying on the providers to worry about those things.

What is confusing to me is why the church would not want retesting using more areas and samples. Wouldn't they want this to date to the 1st century and therefore question test results that showed otherwise? I'd have thought they would want this to be the "real" thing (burial shroud of Jesus), but it appears they are happy with the medieval dates.