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

[Athetotheist]

Reply to post 1968
Miracle? Na ,I would not think so.
Who ever did the TS is far advanced scientifically than any current science to attempt it today and pass inspection and that was a long time ago .
Hands down it puts current science as elementary.
Because it cannot be replicated today is a stand alone statement that someone or something far scientifically superior did it.
With that intelligence to create the TS it is logically obvious that the knowledge did not evolve because if it did then a reproduction would be displayed today.

if we play the carbon 14 game then it makes it even more obvious .
And if scientific method is applied then one must make 4 to 10 exact pristine copies without fault or more to claim a technology to create exact duplicates exists.

So, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Aliens?

Time travelers from the future?

[otseng]

He's saying that men's hair and women's hair should be kept at different lengths in deference to authority.
...

If all he's talking about is authority, he could rank God, man and woman as he does without making any mention of hair. But hair is the focal point of his argument. He goes on and on about it, so he obviously isn't throwing it in as something his audience can just take or leave. It isn't about the word he uses for "hair"; it's about his use of hair length as a gender distinction.

Yes, he could've also not mentioned about head coverings as well. But he used hair length and head coverings specifically to illustrate the principle of authority, not saying you must wear head coverings and have short hair in order to have any "deference to authority".

If Paul was alive now and went to churches, would he be appalled at the sheer number of women who do not wear head coverings and the men that have long hair? I doubt it. And we have hardly anyone complaining about this from the pulpit and saying they are disobeying Paul, except for perhaps a few fundamentalist churches.

The physical appearance of men and women was obviously important to him, so the physical appearance of his Messiah would also be important to him.

Bad argument on several levels. Physical appearance was not important to Paul. If there was anything that was important physically, it would be circumcision (which was very important in the OT), not hair length (which was a requirement for a Nazirite vow). Yet, he was the main person who argued against circumcision. Also, what Paul thinks has no impact on what Jesus or the shroud should've looked like.

[otseng]

There is an ironic twist in the C-14 story. Teddy Hall, who had stated about the shroud, "someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up and flogged it", was the one responsible for exposing the Piltdown Man hoax.

The exposure of the Piltdown Man fossils as a fraud, and the debunking of the myth that the Turin Shroud had wrapped the body of Christ after the Crucifixion, were two of the triumphs of the remarkable scientist and inventor, Professor ET "Teddy" Hall, who has died aged 77.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/a ... alsciences

The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson was responsible for the fraudulent evidence.

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

Though Hall exposed the Piltdown man fraud and is also credited with "debunking of the myth that the Turin Shroud had wrapped the body of Christ after the Crucifixion", he was actually fooled by invisible weave patch experts into thinking their sample from the TS was homogeneous.

When the Piltdown man hoax was uncovered in 1953, sophisticated chemical analysis techniques, developed in part by Teddy Hall, showed that skull fragments and other bone pieces had been expertly dyed to look older and match each other. This was done to fool people into thinking the bones were very old. People were fooled and many thought that the Piltdown man might be the missing link.

In the case of the Shroud of Turin, it was threads were dyed to look older and to match other threads. But it wasn’t the threads of the Shroud itself that were dyed. It was a small area in one corner of the Shroud where some mending threads had been dyed to look like the rest of the age-yellowed Shroud. Chemical analysis proves this. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

https://shroudstory.wordpress.com/2012/ ... ched-2008/

[otseng]

Who ever did the TS is far advanced scientifically than any current science to attempt it today and pass inspection and that was a long time ago .

So, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Aliens?

Time travelers from the future?

I agree with earl's statement about the shroud. So, I turn the question back to you, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #1972

Yes, he could've also not mentioned about head coverings as well. But he used hair length and head coverings specifically to illustrate the principle of authority, not saying you must wear head coverings and have short hair in order to have any "deference to authority".

That's like saying that an army manual on equipment maintenance is intended to illustrate the principle of authority and not to be followed precisely.

"If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God." (1 Corinthians 11:16)

If Paul was alive now and went to churches, would he be appalled at the sheer number of women who do not wear head coverings and the men that have long hair? I doubt it.

A convenient doubt.

And we have hardly anyone complaining about this from the pulpit and saying they are disobeying Paul, except for perhaps a few fundamentalist churches.

We don't have many preachers preaching against the love of money either, do we? Does that mean the love of money isn't a big deal?

what Paul thinks has no impact on what Jesus or the shroud should've looked like.

What Paul thinks says a lot about what he would expect Jesus to look like, and about how he would regard someone who looked like the image on the TS.

I can understand why you would invest so much in the TS. Without inerrancy, what's left to hold the Christian narrative together? Still, content and context can't be ignored. You can't take something a Christian writer set down and say, "Well, he didn't really mean it," just because it causes a problem.

[Athetotheist]

Who ever did the TS is far advanced scientifically than any current science to attempt it today and pass inspection and that was a long time ago .

So, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Aliens?

Time travelers from the future?

I agree with earl's statement about the shroud. So, I turn the question back to you, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Clever medieval artists.

[otseng]

"If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God." (1 Corinthians 11:16)

Yes, the Corinthians were contentious. It was not hair length that they were contentious about. Again, it was only used as an illustration on authority. They were contentious in lack of authority structure, divisions, heresies, not partaking in Lord's supper correctly, getting drunk, et al.

[1Co 11:17-22 KJV] 17 Now in this that I declare [unto you] I praise [you] not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. 20 When ye come together therefore into one place, [this] is not to eat the Lord's supper. 21 For in eating every one taketh before [other] his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise [you] not.

We don't have many preachers preaching against the love of money either, do we? Does that mean the love of money isn't a big deal?

Actually, I do hear about it.

What Paul thinks says a lot about what he would expect Jesus to look like, and about how he would regard someone who looked like the image on the TS.

Paul got his theology from the OT. Where in the OT does it say all males must have short hair?

I can understand why you would invest so much in the TS.

Actually, prior to researching the TS for this debate, I didn't really have a strong opinion about it. But, as I've researched it in the past few months, I'm convinced it's legit.

Without inerrancy, what's left to hold the Christian narrative together?

This is what I've been arguing for in this entire thread. In every topic I've went through, I've spent considerable time presenting evidence to support the veracity of claims in the Bible.

What's interesting is I've been presenting many pages of scientific evidence to support the TS, yet now the only argument being presenting by skeptics is using scripture. Kinda ironic to me.

Still, content and context can't be ignored. You can't take something a Christian writer set down and say, "Well, he didn't really mean it," just because it causes a problem.

If that was my only argument, that'd be true.

So, I turn the question back to you, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Clever medieval artists.

If that's true, then it should be easy to provide who they were and how they created the TS.

[otseng]

The 1988 C-14 dating of the TS is considered the top evidence against the authenticity of the shroud. During the past 15+ pages, I've argued the C-14 evidence can be dismissed. Here is a summary of my arguments:

1. It is often claimed the C-14 dating is conclusive evidence the shroud is a fake. Even the official Nature report makes this claim.

The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.

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

But, if this single evidence can be used as a trump card against all the other evidence for the shroud's authenticity, then it can likewise be claimed that coal deposits are less than 40,000 years old and all theories that involve deep time (evolution, geologic processes) are conclusively false.

viewtopic.php?p=1110947#p1110947

viewtopic.php?p=1111485#p1111485

2. Supposing the TS was actually dated to 1260-1390, it still leaves several questions unanswered -- who did it and how did the image on the cloth get created? It makes no sense to say we don't know these answers and to also claim it's a fake.

viewtopic.php?p=1111279#p1111279

Additionally, there is no other corroborating evidence that it's a work of a medieval artist.

viewtopic.php?p=1111305#p1111305

3. There were many problems with the C-14 testing procedure and I presented in detail 12 procedural issues. Because of these, "at best, it would be a scientific mistrial. At worst, it would be scientific misconduct. Either way, it would render the entire testing void."

viewtopic.php?p=1113255#p1113255

4. The sample used by the C-14 labs have multiple lines of evidence the sample was not homogeneous, so it is therefore not a representative sample of the entire cloth and renders the C-14 dating invalid.

viewtopic.php?p=1113898#p1113898

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to otseng in post #1984]

But, if this single evidence can be used as a trump card against all the other evidence for the shroud's authenticity, then it can likewise be claimed that coal deposits are less than 40,000 years old and all theories that involve deep time (evolution, geologic processes) are conclusively false.

One does not follow from the other, as shown by your points 3 and 4 in the post. If the shroud sample is not representative of the original shroud material and is a medieval repair or contaminated (the primary argument against the C-14 dating results), then no method of dating would produce a 1st century result. This isn't the fault of C-14 dating, but of sampling.

Additional C-14 in coal deposits is thought to arise from production of C-14 by other processes such as radioactive decay (especially of Ur/Th) or bio or fungal activity. If this is the case, then it is similar to the marine reservoir effect, the bomb effect, etc. and has to be corrected for and better understood. It is no way suggests that coal deposits are less then 40,000 years old. Ditto for deep time ... C-14 is only good to about 50,000 years so has nothing at all to do with deep time involving millions and billions of years.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #1977

[1Co 11:17-22 KJV] 17 Now in this that I declare [unto you] I praise [you] not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. 20 When ye come together therefore into one place, [this] is not to eat the Lord's supper. 21 For in eating every one taketh before [other] his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise [you] not.

You're taking what Paul is talking about up through verse 16 and applying it to verses 17 onward instead. In vv.17-22 he's admonishing them for misconduct. The practice held by all the churches which he mentions in v. 16 is what comes before that----and that's the practice about hair length.

Paul got his theology from the OT. Where in the OT does it say all males must have short hair?

If it doesn't, then Paul didn't get his theology from the "OT"----or else had given it up.

Without inerrancy, what's left to hold the Christian narrative together?

This is what I've been arguing for in this entire thread. In every topic I've went through, I've spent considerable time presenting evidence to support the veracity of claims in the Bible.

Then why have you said things like this?....

They are not related, unless one assumes the Bible is inerrant, which I do not hold to.

("Motivations for belief", post #31)

So, I turn the question back to you, who are you suggesting as the TS's creators?

Clever medieval artists.

If that's true, then it should be easy to provide who they were and how they created the TS.

Also a weak argument. Do we know specifically who carved the statues of Easter Island and moved them into place? No. Does that mean it was humanly impossible? No.

If a cloth is pressed against the surface of the face as depicted in the video, it will obviously produce major distortions when the cloth is pressed flat. In the case of the shroud, the cloth was not pressed completely against the skin, but draped over the body. The distortions are an artifact of cloth angle to body.

But cloth angle-to-body is exactly the problem with there being no images of the sides of the head, where the cloth would naturally have fallen.

Another problem with the hair is that it frames the face as if the individual were standing upright rather than falling away from the face onto the surface beneath a body lying supine.