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]

[Replying to otseng in post #2379

The objective line I've offered in this thread is a claim in the Bible that affects a doctrinal position.

How's this for affecting a doctrinal position? (from another discussion in which I've participated):

Here's what the law of Moses says about divorce:

How exactly is divorce a doctrinal position? Is it in any creed or confessional? Is it on any church statement of faith? Do people need to believe in divorce in order to be classified as a Christian?

[otseng]

Note the bold, and thier conclusion:

The Turin Shroud was probably not manufactured in the Land of Israel neither in the Roman nor in the Medevial period. It may not have been imported in none of these periods because not one textile with the above weaving technique was found in the Land of Israel.

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

PLus, use your eyes. Look at the TS and then look at fabric from ancient Israel. There is no comparison. Just open your eyes.

Use my eyes on what? You did not provide any images to look at or compare to.

But, let's look at the article:

Although the grave in the Ben Hinnom Valley (Akeldama) in Jerusalem was
visited by robbers, there was a single, sealed and untouched loculus. Upon opening this
grave a black mass of material and bones were found. The mass itself appeared to be made
up of fabric and human hair. The bones in this loculus had not been gathered for a secondary
burial, as was the custom for Jewish burials at the beginning of the first millennium CE.

The textile fragments belong to a shroud. The deceased was buried with the shroud
because there was no secondary burial. The tomb was probably sealed because of leprosy
and there was no bone-collecting after a year. The shroud is made of wool.

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

Rather than the TS being an anomaly, this discovery would be an anomaly compared to other burials. This shroud was made from wool, not linen.

The use of wool textile in primary use for burials and shrouds is less common than linen in the Land
of Israel and was usually used for shrouds in secondary use.

Further, proper burial custom would be to take the bones and put it into an ossuary. But this was not done.

The bones in this loculus had not been gathered for a secondary
burial, as was the custom for Jewish burials at the beginning of the first millennium CE.

The cloth did have a Z-spin weave. Authors state a Z-spin weave is indicative of a special cloth that only the rich would buy.

Wool textiles from the Roman period in Israel are usually S-spun. Z-spun textiles comprise only
a small proportion of Roman-period textiles recovered in Israel and neighbouring countries, while
in Greece and Italy, for example, the Z-spin was the norm [11]. Therefore the wool textile from
Akeldama could have been imported. This would indicate that the individual came from a wealthy
family. Importing a special and “fine” burial cloth would entail time and expense and would not be done
for the common man.

It also states many other types of shrouds have been discovered in other excavations. These have an S-spin with a plain weave.

The best preserved shrouds are from Roman-period ‘En Gedi (2nd-1st centuries BCE, Second
Temple period). They were found in eight Jewish tombs on the southern bank of Nahal ‘Arugot and
in one tomb on the northern bank of Nahal David [17].
Seventy textile fragments of an undyed, cream-colored linen were preserved, the largest measuring
16 × 12 cm 2 . Two varieties were observed, both of which used S-spun linen threads: Type A is a plain
weave with 12 × 10 threads/cm; Type B, somewhat coarser, is an extended tabby (basket weave) with
8 × 2 by 6 × 2 threads/cm

Some had wool red bands.

The shrouds are made of linen, but a small group of them is decorated with narrow wool red bands

None of the shrouds or textiles ever discovered in Israel are sha’atnez (mixed linen and wool).

But none of the Jewish shrouds found in the above-mentioned archaeological sites and none of the shrouds made
from reused textiles (see below) are made of sha’atnez.

Although thousands of textiles in the Land of Israel have been examined, no one piece of sha’atnez
has been recovered from any Roman Jewish site [24].

Shrouds could have been from a variety of sources, including tunics, mantles, and sacks.

Shrouds were sometimes made from reused textiles. Most of the shrouds in the Cave of Letters were
made from tunics and mantles, usually made of wool, that had been ripped apart for this purpose.
Linen sacks were also in secondary use as shrouds.

Textiles were very costly, esp linen.

Textiles were too costly to throw away. When a garment had passed the state where patching was no
longer possible, it was cut into pieces and either remade into another garment or used for patches [37].
Despite the fact that the Land of Israel was considered an important textile center, there was a chronic
shortage of garments in general, and of linen ones in particular. Such linen garments were quite rare and
certainly very expensive [38].

Burial custom included wrapping and binding.

The Hebrew word for these burial shrouds, takrikim, connotes wrapping and binding more than dressing
as is also indicated by Tractate Semahot: “Man may wrap and bind men but not women, but women may
wrap and bind both men and women”

It was important to bury the body on the day of death.

To honor the dead the family has to bury him within the day when the dead occurred: “One who
delays the burial of his deceased thereupon performs a transgression. (On the other hand) if he delayed
(the burial) for the deceased’s honour, (in order) to bring him a sarcophagus or shrouds, that is not
considered a transgression”

It was a custom to spend great sums on burial.

During the late Second Temple period it became common to spend great sums on expensive
shrouds [43]. The rich grew very extravagant in this respect, securing fanciful and costly garments,
and establishing a custom which became a burden upon mourners of the middle and poorer classes, who
could ill endure the expense and yet desired to show the highest respect for their dead.

As for comparison with the TS, it is the media that claims the TS is not authentic, not the authors.

The Akeldama discovery immediately suggested to the media some comparisons with the Shroud of
Turin. The detailed characterization of the weave has allowed them to be compared to the Turin shroud,
providing additional proof for them that the latter is not authentic

Certainly the TS has a unique cloth that is linen with Z-spin thread and a herringbone weave pattern. But that does not mean a unique shroud is automatically inauthentic. As evidenced by the above, there are many different types of shrouds that have been found, so there is no requirement that all shrouds be exactly the same.

Interestingly the article had significant analysis on comparing it to the TS. If the TS cloth has been proven to be of medieval dating, why would they even bother to make the comparison?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Diogenes in post #2386

... or... The Mosaic Law was crafted by selfish men, secure in their patriarchy, who made laws to serve themselves with little thought for the 2d class members of their society - women. Couple thousand years later Jesus comes along, a man with compassion for all, a man who consorted with the lower classes and [gasp!] women... not to mention having a drink now and then.

Look again. Moses allows a poor divorced woman to find a new husband, whereas Jesus condemns her to a life of solitude.

. . . from 'an eye for an eye' and the vengeful retributive culture to one where love is the center, forgiveness the creed.

The "eye for an eye" rule limited punishment to fitting the crime, whereas Jesus prescribed eternal hellfire for feelings of misplaced anger and calling someone "fool".

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2391

How exactly is divorce a doctrinal position?

"doctrine and dogma, the explication and officially acceptable version of a religious teaching."
https://www.britannica.com/

Jesus put forth his take on divorce as a religious teaching.

Do people need to believe in divorce in order to be classified as a Christian?

According to Jesus, people needed to accept his interpretation of divorce.

[boatsnguitars]

Use my eyes on what? You did not provide any images to look at or compare to.

Compare your picture of the TS to all other examples of textiles from the time of Jesus. Take your pick. I figured you had already looked at the fabrics you have linked. I did, did you?

Feel free to link them here, if you would like. I'm not as invested in this as you are. It took me about 5 minutes to find the reasonable conclusion, whereas, it's only Christians who are invested in finding any evidence whatsoever for their religion who are anomaly-hunting this thing to death.

Post the images of the fabrics you linked. Let us see.

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #2391

How exactly is divorce a doctrinal position?

"doctrine and dogma, the explication and officially acceptable version of a religious teaching."
https://www.britannica.com/

Jesus put forth his take on divorce as a religious teaching.

My criteria is doctrine, not teaching. And since you cannot demonstrate divorce is any creed or confession or church statement of faith, then it is not a doctrinal position.

Do people need to believe in divorce in order to be classified as a Christian?

According to Jesus, people needed to accept his interpretation of divorce.

We have many believers who have divorced. Are they still Christian?

[otseng]

Compare your picture of the TS to all other examples of textiles from the time of Jesus. Take your pick. I figured you had already looked at the fabrics you have linked. I did, did you?

Feel free to link them here, if you would like. I'm not as invested in this as you are. It took me about 5 minutes to find the reasonable conclusion, whereas, it's only Christians who are invested in finding any evidence whatsoever for their religion who are anomaly-hunting this thing to death.

You made the claim, so it's your burden to support your claim. How hard is it to post a picture?

[otseng]

The linen threads on the shroud do not all have the exact same color. The threads have been produced in batches and because each batch has slight differences with another, it results in the banding effect on the cloth.

Bands of slightly different color can be seen in Shroud photographs. They are most
visible in ultraviolet-fluorescence photographs (see Hands UV). Both warp and
weft yarns show this property. Some areas show darker warp yarns and some show
darker weft yarns. In some places bands of darker color cross. In other places bands of
lighter color cross. The effect is somewhat like a plaid.

All of the bleaching processes used through history remove lignin and most
associated flax impurities (e.g., flax wax and hemicelluloses). The more quantitative the
bleaching process the whiter the product. The bands of different color on the Shroud are the
end result of different amounts of impurities left from the bleaching process.

Anna Maria Donadoni, a curator at the
Museum of Egyptology in Turin, pointed out locations where batches of yarn ended in the weave
and new yarn had been inserted in order to continue weaving. The yarn ends were laid side by
side, and the weave was compressed with the comb. The ends are often visible, and the overlaps
correspond to zones of different color in the weave. The different batches of yarn show different colors.

Where darker bands of yarn intersect image areas, the image is darker. Where lighter
bands intersect an image area, the image appears lighter. This proves that the image color is not a
result of reactions in the cellulose of the linen. Some impurities on the surface of the different
batches of yarn produced the image color. This observation is extremely important when tests
are being made on image-formation hypotheses. If image color is not simply a result of color
formation in the cellulose of the linen fibers, image formation must be a much more complex
process than we originally thought.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers5faqs.pdf

Another interesting feature is the presence of numerous dark (pale in the photographic
negative) warp threads that run for some distance through the Shroud and cross from
image to non-image areas. A good example runs through one side of the face, across the
eye and forehead into the hair. These darker threads indicate that, even though the cloth
was piece bleached, the yarns must also have been at least part bleached before weaving,
probably in hank form.
Dealt with in hank form, the yarns would not have been similarly and evenly bleached
throughout their lengths. Although the cloth would be bleached again after weaving, this
treatment evidently failed to even-up the differences in shade between and within the
individual yarns.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ssi06part6.pdf

Medieval linen do not typically exhibit banding in threads.

Commercial production of linen started during Medieval times, and the linen looks much
different than the Shroud. Medieval linen was spun to great lengths on the spinning wheel,
and it was bleached as the cloth. Most commercial bleaching took place in "bleach fields" in
the Low Countries, the genesis for the name "Holland cloth" that is applied to the backing on
the Shroud. Considerable material was lost during the bleaching process, and the newer
linens are less dense, as can be seen with the Holland cloth. The newer linens are also
homogeneous. They do not show bands of different thread in the weave.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers10.pdf

Banding is compatible with 1st century weaving.

It should be recognized that not all Shroud locations show lignin to the same extent. This is not
surprising, because bands of thread in both the warp and weft are observed to have slightly
different densities of colour. This fact supports the hypothesis that the Shroud was woven from
linen made by the ancient technology described by Pliny the Elder. Pliny described thread made
on a hand spindle whorl that was bleached in separate batches before being used in the weaving
operation.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n54part6.pdf

So, the evidence of banding on the cloth makes it more likely it is a first century cloth than a medieval cloth.

[boatsnguitars]

From King David's era.

[POI]

Before I respond to the stuff below, I would like to point out what I feel is the crux of the matter here. You stated -- (post 2379) "The objective line I've offered in this thread is a claim in the Bible that affects a doctrinal position. Does the sun standing still affect any doctrine? No, so it's futile to debate the historicity of it. Is God the creator of the universe? Yes, so time should be spent debating this. Does it matter how many women were at the Jesus' tomb? No. Does it matter if Jesus was resurrected from the dead? Absolutely yes."

For which you addressed PART of my response, but skipped the rest. To me, this is pivotal -- (post 2384) i.e.:

"If it should turn out that much of the Genesis account alone is incorrect, then logically, shouldn't the conclusion lead a person to severe doubt in such a claimed specific doctrine (i.e.) "a YWHW created and ran universe"? Do claimed events, like the Exodus, outweigh claims of how many women were at a tomb? Does the Genesis account matter? yes or no? I'd say it does."

You did not address the part in red, but only addressed the part in blue.

So I'll ask again, rephrased:

1. Do the Genesis claims need to be true for you to remain in your faith that Jesus rose from a grave to save you?
2. Is it logical to dismiss the Bible as trustworthy, if it should turn out that the Genesis events did not happen? But, maybe still search elsewhere for some other 'creator' agency/agencies?
3. If the Exodus did not happen, does this matter?
4. What claims need to be right to retain your faith? The resurrection alone, or more? If more, how many more, for the Bible to be deemed a trustworthy and reliable document?

I'd say yes, Genesis matters, that is why I spent so much time discussing cosmology, global flood, tower of Babel, and Egyptology in this thread.

Then 2 things here....

1. Do you feel you have 'justified' all claims in Genesis, as being actual events in history?
2. And if so, do you use the same standard for these claims, as you would do for any presented claim(s) from antiquity (outside the Bible)?

Again, the actual question which you have not addressed is:
"I have to ask why are you even asking me to debate the Exodus again when the current topic is the Shroud of Turin? Instead, I should be asking you to address the TS, not for you to ask me to address the Exodus again."

Your question does not track or follow. The title of this thread reads "How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?". Genesis, Exodus, etc, are Bible claims. The Shroud is another claim, made OUTSIDE the Bible, for its questionability of being trustworthy or not. Further, again, it gets too messy to jumble this many subtopics into one topic. I have little confidence someone is going to sift through mounds of pages, to see if they can find answers to their specific questions, about various subtopics, in this thread.

I'll tell you what, one thing I wish I could've spent more time debating is the conquest of Canaan. I'd be more than happy to debate you on that after this thread is completed.

I'm not going to hold my breath . The thread is there, and no Christians are engaging it. If any Christian here felt you have provided them with anything worthy of discussion, for which you claim you have already provided in this thread, then why isn't anyone presenting it over there as evidence? Probably for two reasons. 1) They may never find it in this convoluted thread? 2) Maybe it's not very convincing to begin with?

As I stated prior, if you care not to present your point(s), to suggest an Exodus even happened, then maybe you are not confident that such presented 'evidence' is truly worthy? Because again, if you have extensively presented your case, then you should be able to rattle off point after point, without spending too much time doing so. Just like I do for the topics I've studied and feel I can support in this arena. Remember, this is a debate. If you feel you have answers to a topic, it should not require too much time defending your position. Debaters do it all the time, in debates

If I did provide a single source that gave a synopsis of all my arguments for the Exodus, would that then shut doubters up?

Well, I have no way in answering that question, since you have been asked to do so several times, and you instead spend just as much time here explaining why you won't.

Unfortunately, the format of a forum is not conducive for presenting information in an organized manner.

Well, then all your efforts will likely be lost in translation. If you were to wage an excellent case for the Exodus, or flood, or Tower of Babel, or other, virtually no one will know. Why? It's lost in a sea of other stuff, in this convoluted mess of a topic filled with many subtopcs.

Case/point, you say you are working on the Shroud, and yet, here we are, not discussing the Shroud

Creating separate threads instead of having a single thread would make things worse. I have a hard enough time keeping track of things in a single thread. Expanding out in multiple threads would be impossible for me to manage.

I disagree. There exists 'multiple threads' infused into one topic. They will be lost for most. Unproductive. Case/point, I created an Exodus topic, because I would never have guessed it exists here, as a subtopic. The title of your topic does not suggest anything about an Exodus. Further, if I were not to ask you, I would never have known the Exodus was in here -- (somewhere, scattered)?