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.

----------

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

[JoeMama]

[Replying to otseng in post #2176]

Otseng wrote:

I have no idea what you're claiming. I'm claiming the TS is the actual burial shroud of Jesus. And you stated, "I also believe 100% that the image on the shroud depicts Jesus." If you believe that, what other shroud are you referring to?

JoeMama responds:

I certainly believe the image depicts Jesus, just as do countless images hanging on gallery walls, but that doesn't mean I think the image is of Jesus.

It's likely the shroud we have is fake, in my opinion, but that doesn't prove the resurrection didn't occur. Perhaps the "actual" shroud will turn up some day and prove the Christianity is true. That's the "other shroud" I was referring to. Silly argument, of course, but such arguments are often offered up by apologists.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #2172]

[Replying to JoeMama in post #2170

Joe Mama wrote:

The believer will be able to say that God's plan all along was to put errors in his Bible to weed out undeserving persons who abandon too quickly their belief in him because of something so trivial as a few Bible "errors."

Athetotheist responds:

The problem here is that it would run afoul of 2 Timothy 3:16....

I don't think that's a problem. I could include the Timothy verse in the list of false teachings that God seeded into the gospels.

[Diogenes]

Any student of anatomy can easily see the image on the 'shroud' is a painting, just by looking at it.

It's impossible to be a painting or the result of any artwork. This was the conclusion of the 1978 STURP findings:

No pigments, paints, dyes or stains have been found on the fibrils. X-ray, fluorescence and microchemistry on the fibrils preclude the possibility of paint being used as a method for creating the image. Ultra Violet and infrared evaluation confirm these studies.

That conclusion is unfounded and incorrect as was pointed out by STURP member McCrone, the only expert in STURP qualified to perform the appropriate examination.

The faint sepia image is made up of billions of submicron pigment particles (red ochre and vermilion) in a collagen tempera medium. The pigments red ochre and vermilion with the collagen tempera medium was a common paint composition during the 14th century; before which, no one had ever heard of the Shroud.
....
The “Shroud” is a beautiful painting created about 1355 for a new church in need of a pilgrim-attracting relic.

https://www.mccroneinstitute.org/v/64/t ... d-of-turin
McCrorne's paper, published by the American Chemical Society deserves to be read in full:
http://www.mccroneinstitute.org/uploads ... 560933.pdf

The American Chemical Society is one of the world's largest scientific societies and a leading source of scientific information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society

More specifically "Based on his microscopic and chemical analysis of the tape samples obtained by STURP, McCrone concluded that the image on the Shroud was painted with a dilute pigment of red ochre in a collagen tempera (i.e., gelatin) medium, using a technique similar to the grisaille employed in the 14th century by Simone Martini and other European artists. McCrone also found that the "bloodstains" in the image had been highlighted with vermilion (a bright red pigment made from mercury sulfide), also in a collagen tempera medium. McCrone reported that no actual blood was present in the samples taken from the Shroud."

And who is Walter_McCrone?
"In 2000 he received the American Chemical Society's National Award in Analytical Chemistry."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_McCrone
This entire article deserves to be read by anyone doubting McCrone's credentials.

As is almost always the case with Flat Earthers, Young Earth Creationists, and 'Shroud' believers, biased, inferior sources are used, including blogs like AIG that were organized for a single purpose: Promoting a fundamentalist version of the Christian faith, not science.

[JoeMama]

[[url][url][/url][/url],

Otseng wrote,

"The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy."

JoeMama comments:
Otseng,

One wonders what sort of text in the Bible would convince the faithful that the Bible is NOT God's word. So, for example, what if 2 Timothy 3:16-17 read as follows:

"Most scripture is given by man, not God, and is not suitable for instruction."


Many Christians would label this as false teaching, but on what basis would they do so? They cannot counter such a statement with one found elsewhere that says the opposite, because such doesn't exist, so why reject this clear, definitive statement declaring most of scripture is false? What rule would they apply to dismiss it?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to JoeMama in post #2182

I don't think that's a problem. I could include the Timothy verse in the list of false teachings that God seeded into the gospels.

But then you run into 1 Corinthians 14:33....

When we encounter conflicting opinions about gospel truths, it is good to remember that “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace”.

If you dismiss that as false teaching seeded in, everything else goes with it. If you keep it as true, you lose the "false seeding" scenario.

[Diogenes]

Any student of anatomy can easily see the image on the 'shroud' is a painting, just by looking at it.
....The image is anatomically incorrect.

Is the image photographically correct? No. The image on the cloth is not based on what we would see, but what the cloth would capture based on the imaging projection technique. I discussed this here and here.

Yes, I read the 'explanations "there" and "there." I don't know where you got this "projection" idea. Wherever, it's a poor one. You certainly do not explain it satisfactorily. Not only is there no mention of how the eyes are impossibly and inhumanly too close to the crown of the head, but that feature exactly conforms to the anatomical errors and style of 14th Century gothic artists. Coincidence?

Also, there was no "projection." The image, if it came from a body, would be a contact image, caused by direct contact between the body and the cloth. The rest of the claims and excuses for why the image does not look like a real body only serve to show how desperate is the effort to explain why a gothic painting on a 14th Century cloth does not look like it came from a human 1300 years earlier.

There is a simple explanation for how this 14th Century cloth (carbon dating) has a 14th Century gothic artist's idea of human anatomy: It was painted by a 14th Century artist on a 14th Century cloth for the most common of reasons:
To attract pilgrims to the church for monetary gain.

You've tried to explain away the many anatomical discrepancies, but failed to address at all the most glaring one, the eyes being several inches too high, too close to the top of the head. You'll have to explain in detail how this contact image, somehow was "projected" onto the cloth. Even then, why are the eyes' location changed, but not the location of the top of the head?

One more thing. Even if you [somehow] reject McCrone's detailed testing and analysis that shows no blood, and you really still believe there's blood on the cloth, it would hardly be surprising the artist used blood as paint if he was forging an image supposedly formed by human blood.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #2185]

JoeMama responds to Athetotheist:

God put the Corinthian verse there to preempt any suspicion that God deliberately seeded the problem verses, thus making it more likely that they would continue to believe them, thereby exposing their unworthy.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to JoeMama in post #2187]

Note: The argument I made is the kryptonite that the inerrantist can hold up to ward off attack by skeptics who point to various errors and contradictions in the Bible.

If it seems to be an error or false teaching, it's not. God placed that content in the Bible to see what fools would believe such horrible things about him, the inerrantist will say. Bullet-proof defense.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to JoeMama in post #2187

God put the Corinthian verse there to preempt any suspicion that God deliberately seeded the problem verses, thus making it more likely that they would continue to believe them, thereby exposing their unworthy.

And would God now be telling you to reveal that he put the Corinthian verse there to preempt any suspicion that God deliberately seeded the problem verses, thus making it more likely that they would continue to believe them, thereby exposing their unworthy?

Really----I think this joke's gone far enough.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #2189]

I think we each were traveling down separate tracks, beginning with your response to my first post. I didn't understand your first response to mine, but I took a guess as to what you were saying, and sent a response that likely was similarly misunderstood. In the next cycle, the same sort of misperception (on each of our parts) occurred, again, and things got even more confused. The classic rabbit-hole paradigm.

I am happy to conclude this exercise in futility. We each can save our energies, and our minds, for more worthy fights, with the inerrantists.