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]

Even if the fabric is old, couldn't a medieval artist put an image on an old piece of fabric?

Please provide evidence this is plausible.

[otseng]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #1934]That sounds really odd. When you consider the clumsy patching done to repair fire damage, the idea of a time consuming 're-woven' that only 'experts' can detect seems hard to believe.

Are you saying they did not have the technology and ability to do such an invisible repair in the past?

But this just sounds like straining for excuses to reject the C14 date. We don't even know the samples came from the supposed re -woven areas (nobody seems sure where they actually came from). I have to suspend crediting this argument.

Please provide counter-evidence instead of just claiming it's "straining for excuses". I presented several lines of evidence to argue for my position, simply saying it's "straining for excuses" is not a valid counter argument.

but I'd always heard that the church would not want the shroud to be touched and only separate fragments could be C14 dated.

Please provide a reference, not just what you've always heard.

The references seems to relate to a 'paper'(like it was peer -reviewed in a science journal) but was 'presented' at a sindon conference. If it was a apologetic to believers as a believers cnoference you could write that the same way.

Ray Rogers felt the same way. But when he investigated it for himself, he confirmed the theory.

Never mind a housewife passing on her theory to her husband, who I suppose was some kind of scientist?

Who would have more intuitive knowledge about fabrics than housewives?

Even if the sample happened to come from an area where a cunning reweave had been done, wouldn't the main dating come from original material? The contamination might move the date but not make a 1st c shroud look medieval.

C-14 dating would date any organic material, including any cotton patch applied to it from a later date. We do not know the date of the additional cotton threads that were added to patch the area. At a minimum, it proves the C-14 sample was not homogeneous so the entire testing would be invalid.

[otseng]

What you believe doesn't matter.What can you present as evidence for this? I argue that no synoptic gospel even mentions the raising of Lazarus.How do you explain that other than 'John' inventing it?

This was covered in Who wrote the Gospel we call "John's"?

Ok. we can confide ourselves to the resurrection -claim and not talk about Lazarus, though really overall gospel - veracity and doubts about is relevant. I don't see that you should get to decide what evidence is presented and what is not (though it should relate to topic), even if you do own the forum.

I want to keep this debate semi-organized. Going off on many rabbit trails will make things hard to follow. The main topic now is the TS, and in particular the C-14 dating.

[otseng]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #1942]

We've covered this many times before as testified by you:

I'm sure we have done this before - more than once, perhaps. The terminal contradictions in the story do for it.

But I'll tell you what, we can debate this more about the resurrection accounts after the I present all the evidence for the TS.

[otseng]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #1935

That sounds really odd. When you consider the clumsy patching done to repair fire damage, the idea of a time consuming 're-woven' that only 'experts' can detect seems hard to believe. I can credit the argument that the dated samples came from a later repair, I can accept that they came from a corner or edge where later handling contaminated the C14 reading. But this just sounds like straining for excuses to reject the C14 date.

I was proposing a simpler explanation for the image. You should appreciate that, since you tend to go for simpler explanations.

Go for it. Please present your evidence as to how the image was formed.

[otseng]

Robert Villarreal, a Los Alamos National Lab chemist, carried on the research on a sample Rogers had after Rogers passed away.

From a purely scientific perspective, a number of excellent and important papers were presented. Most notable among these was the paper presented by Robert Villarreal of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The paper, titled, "Analytical Results on Threads Taken from the Raes Sampling Area (Corner) of the Shroud" presented the data obtained by nine Los Alamos scientists that examined Raes Sample threads from the Raymond Rogers Collection, which is in my care. When I first received the materials from the Rogers family, I noticed that one important sample was missing, Raes #1, the apparent end-to-end spliced thread that Rogers had identified. More than a year passed before I received the contents of Ray's computer and it was only then that I discovered that Ray had given the sample to several of his LANL colleagues for scientific analysis just two weeks before he died. Fortunately, Ray had included their names, so I immediately contacted Bob Villarreal at the lab, introduced myself and asked him about the missing sample, which of course he still had in his possession. At that point (and much relieved that I had found the sample), I asked him if he would be willing to continue the work he had begun several years earlier with Ray. He enthusiastically agreed and over the past year I made some additional samples available to him and his team. This paper presents the results of their analyses of those samples.

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

Villarreal confirmed chemical differences between the ends of the threads using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Infrared Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and many other tests.

You can read the report at:
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ohiovillarreal.pdf

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #1940

That's a strawman example with King Kong. Instead, can you give a real example where there existed a written record and an artifact and it was rejected as historical because someone believed it to be implausible?

It's not a strawman at all. A biblical battle taking place doesn't prove biblical miracles, just as the Empire State Building existing doesn't prove that a giant ape climbed it. It's the same principle.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #1935

That sounds really odd. When you consider the clumsy patching done to repair fire damage, the idea of a time consuming 're-woven' that only 'experts' can detect seems hard to believe. I can credit the argument that the dated samples came from a later repair, I can accept that they came from a corner or edge where later handling contaminated the C14 reading. But this just sounds like straining for excuses to reject the C14 date.

I was proposing a simpler explanation for the image. You should appreciate that, since you tend to go for simpler explanations.

Go for it. Please present your evidence as to how the image was formed.

Review the time marker in the video in my post #10 in "3 Facts and the Shroud of Turin".

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #1940

That's a strawman example with King Kong. Instead, can you give a real example where there existed a written record and an artifact and it was rejected as historical because someone believed it to be implausible?

It's not a strawman at all. A biblical battle taking place doesn't prove biblical miracles, just as the Empire State Building existing doesn't prove that a giant ape climbed it. It's the same principle.

It's a strawman because nobody is claiming King Kong is historical. I ask again, can you give a real example where there existed a written record and an artifact and it was rejected as historical because someone believed it to be implausible?

Go for it. Please present your evidence as to how the image was formed.

Review the time marker in the video in my post #10 in "3 Facts and the Shroud of Turin".

Here's what you posted:

Don't know how many of you are old enough to remember this but you may want to take a look, paying particular attention to 13:48-17:00.

I assume you are referring to the "bas-relief" technique by Joe Nickell.

Nickell and others contend the Shroud is a 14th-century painting on linen, suggested through the 1988 radiocarbon dating. One of Nickell's many objections to the Shroud's authenticity is the proportions of the figure's face and body. Both are consistent with the proportions used by Gothic artists of the period and are not those of an actual person.[38] Experts on both sides of the controversy have tried to duplicate the Shroud using medieval and modern methods. Claimants to the Shroud's authenticity believe the image could have been produced at the moment of resurrection by radiation, electrical discharge, or ultraviolet radiation; Nickell created a credible shroud using the bas relief method and contends that forgers had equivalent materials available during the 14th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Nickell

If he used paint in his bas-relief, there is no evidence of paint used to form the image. If he used a scorch technique, then it would fluoresce under ultraviolet light imaging, but this is not detected on the shroud except for the 1532 burn marks and the poker holes. Also, by pressing the cloth onto a statue, when it is pulled off and pressed flat, it would have major distortions, which we do not see on the shroud. Though it might have a photo-negative effect, it would not have 3-D encoding. Also doubtful his image is only on the top few fibrils of the cloth. Further, he failed to even try to simulate the blood stains. These are just a few of the problems that come to mind with his claim.

[otseng]

John Brown, principal research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute, studied some threads from the Raes sample and found evidence of cotton threads with dye applied to it. Where the threads crossed, there was not any dye.

Figure 1 shows a weft thread, R7, at an original magnification of 28X. The thread has a yellow-brown coating with the exception of indented regions which are white. These indented regions are at the intersection with the warp thread. The weave was tight enough that the application of a relatively viscous gum/mordant/dye solution did not penetrate the intersection of the threads. This would appear to be obvious evidence of a medieval artisan’s attempt to dye a newly added repair region of fabric to match the aged appearance of the remainder of the Shroud. Figure 2 shows the same thread at 56X magnification. The coating and encrustations can be seen on individual fibers.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/brown1.pdf