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

[JoeMama]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #2550]


That's the real take-away: Religionists are liars and gullible.
I'm with you up to where you get it wrong...

The implication that all religionists are liars is unwarranted.

Errant conclusions are not the product of a desire to deceive, but of some other fault.

JoeMama comments:

I would twist the words around a bit: "Gullible liars are more likely to be religionists than skeptics.

[boatsnguitars]

[Replying to otseng in post #2543

I will also add a theory can involve a method that current science does not fully understand. Given that 200 years ago, people did not have the scientific knowledge to understand the shroud like we do now, it's not so far-fetched that 200 years from now, science will be advanced enough to understand something about the shroud that we currently do not know.

.....like maybe a technique used by a medieval artist and forgotten over the centuries?

Exactly. We don't know how the Incas and Egyptians cut the stone so precisely, but they did. And it didn't take supernatural means.

[otseng]

I'm just going to post a general response and say nobody has given any counterarguments with any references to my summary argument that the TS is authentic. This is quite strange that nobody has even been able to rationally argue against it since all participants in this thread do not believe its the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth and continually claim its a fake. This should be easy to provide evidence for if it's a forgery. Instead, what we see are red herrings, personal attacks, mocking, and multiple unsupported assertions.

Again, I'm so confident of my position that I'm willing to challenge anyone to submit our views to any peer reviewed journal on our positions. You (or a number of you) write up a paper. I'll write up my paper. And we both submit it to a peer reviewed journal and we'll see what happens. Any takers?

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #2543

I will also add a theory can involve a method that current science does not fully understand. Given that 200 years ago, people did not have the scientific knowledge to understand the shroud like we do now, it's not so far-fetched that 200 years from now, science will be advanced enough to understand something about the shroud that we currently do not know.

.....like maybe a technique used by a medieval artist and forgotten over the centuries?

That could be a possibility too. But unlikely since the shroud has features hundreds of years before we discovered them. There's no evidence of anyone in the middle ages knew about photography, 3D imaging, x-ray, UV imaging, etc. So, it's more likely it has features that will be discovered than rediscovered.

[JoeyKnothead]

I'm just going to post a general response and say nobody has given any counterarguments with any references to my summary argument that the TS is authentic. This is quite strange that nobody has even been able to rationally argue against it since all participants in this thread do not believe its the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth and continually claim its a fake. This should be easy to provide evidence for if it's a forgery. Instead, what we see are red herrings, personal attacks, mocking, and multiple unsupported assertions.

The counter argument to your position is that it relies on speculation. Without some means to compare the image and blood on the shroud to Jesus, we'll never know it is, or ain't, the man himself.

Without confirming how a virgin can produce a y chromosome for her male offspring, we can't even confirm Jesus, as claimed, even existed.

You seem to prefer the "RealWorld"Jack method of debate. Why the need to ignore these problems?

Again, I'm so confident of my position that I'm willing to challenge anyone to submit our views to any peer reviewed journal on our positions. You (or a number of you) write up a paper. I'll write up my paper. And we both submit it to a peer reviewed journal and we'll see what happens. Any takers?

I propose that if you were as confident in your position as you assert, there'd be no need to present the caveat that you'll only do so if someone else does as well.

You have the power, within yourself, to present your claims to the scientific community. Don't let anybody's inability invoke in you an inability of your own.

[otseng]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief#/m ... se)_01.JPG

Since bas-relief has been mentioned multiple times, we'll start looking at this first.

What is bas-relief?

Bas-relief is a type of relief (sculpture) that has less depth to the faces and figures than they actually have, when measured proportionately (to scale). This technique keeps the natural shapes of the figures and allows the work to be seen from many angles without twisting the figures themselves.

There is a continuation of the bas-relief technique into the next category, altorilievo, or high relief. High relief makes deeper images than bas-relief. Instead of shallow backgrounds that are a few inches (cm) deep at most, they can be up to several feet (a few meters) deep in altorilievo.

Some of the best examples of bas-relief are the Assyrian Lion Hunt Reliefs, which are housed at the British Museum. The attention to detail and appearance of the lions moving make them stand out, especially for the time period they were made in.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-relief

a type of art in which shapes are cut from the surrounding stone so that they stand out slightly against a flat surface, or a work of art done in this way

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... bas-relief

Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane.

There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the sculpted form from the field, for which the Italian and French terms are still sometimes used in English. The full range includes high relief (alto-rilievo, haut-relief), where more than 50% of the depth is shown and there may be undercut areas, mid-relief (mezzo-rilievo), low relief (basso-rilievo), or French: bas-relief (French pronunciation: ​[baʁəljɛf]), and shallow-relief or rilievo schiacciato,[3] where the plane is only very slightly lower than the sculpted elements. There is also sunk relief, which was mainly restricted to Ancient Egypt (see below). However, the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only terms used to discuss most work.

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

What I've already addressed about bas-relief...

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.

If you can beat the evidence of bas-relief imaging, it would go a long way toward clinching your case.

Let me summarize what I've posted so far on bas-relief imaging...

I don't see any attempt in Costanzo's experiment to replicate the blood stains. Also doubt the experiment accounts for all the image features found on the TS. In other words, yes, he attempted to make a replica of the TS, but failed to fully replicate it.

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.

There is no stain on the TS. The coloration is only due to dehydration-oxidation of the linen, much like when linen is exposed to light. Also, is it only affecting the top one or two fibrils in the cloth? Is it producing a half-tone effect?

"Although no single theory adequately accounts for all of the observations, it is
concluded that the image is the result of some cellulose oxidation-dehydration reaction
rather than an applied pigment."
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/Physics%20C ... 0OCRsm.pdf

For attempts to do a bas-relief through scorching, evidence is against this as well.

One of the most important arguments against the scorch is related to UV fluorescence. It is well
known that the UV/Vis fluorescence photography of the TS shows that the body image does not
fluoresce while the light scorches emit a reddish fluorescence. Miller and Pellicori performed several
experiments using the same equipment as in Turin.

The fundamental mechanisms involved in color production by any kind of scorch are clear. At a given
temperature above a certain threshold, the color of the portions of fibers in narrow contact with the
hot material immediately begins to change. In the same time, the heat propagates along the fiber
and, probably, between adjacent fibers. But the key parameter is the very low diffusivity of linen:
there is a steep color gradient. In this sense, scorching can be seen as an almost perfect “contact-
only” image formation process. No contact, no color.
The Turin shroud image is continuous: on the face, all the anatomical parts are seen, including for
example the sides of the nostrils. There is no “hole” (taking into account the “banding effect”). Of
course the lack of image in some areas (the areas surrounding the hands for instance) does not prove
that the TS image is a contact-only image. Thus, a forger using the scorching technique would have to
put the linen in contact with all the parts of the bas-relief.
The color of the TS image fibers is everywhere the same: a pale yellow. This does correspond to what
I called a very light or a light scorch. This is obtained on a small surface at low temperature.
At thread level, the TS image color distribution is continuous: all the threads are colored. Because the
scorch mechanism is a contact-only mechanism, this can only be obtained by an intimate contact, i.e.
a relatively high contact pressure.
Consequently, in theory, in order to obtain an image resembling the TS image, a forger would have to
use a bas-relief, to heat it uniformly in a narrow range of low temperature, to apply it firmly on all
parts of the bas-relief and to control the contact pressure and the contact-time.
Let’s assume that after some trials, he would have succeeded in this task. Even in this case the above
table shows the fundamental differences with the TS image characteristics as seen through the
microscope.
The main arguments ruling out the scorch hypothesis can be summarized as follows:
- It is simply impossible to obtain an “image” made only of pale yellow fibers.
- A color gradient between the horizontal highest part and the oblique lateral parts of the threads is
always observed and particularly obvious in very light and light scorched areas.
22- If on a given flat area a faint yellow superficial color can be obtained, the color distribution does not
match that of the TS image: most of the threads are colorless and the gradient at thread level is
obvious. Applying a higher contact pressure result in a color distribution more uniform (more threads
are colored), a less obvious gradient (although detectable) and finally an image distribution that is
more similar to that of the TS image, although clearly different. But in this case, several fibers at the
topmost parts of these threads are burned. A higher contact pressure is the only way to obtain
shading. Even with a one millimeter high relief (the nose for instance), the contrast with the adjacent
parts is much too high with respect to the TS image (as shown by Jackson) and this fact is explained
by the observations through the microscope.
- the consequence is that a light scorch does not show truly the halftone effect observed on the TS
image: in the more colored areas, shading is not obtained by a higher density of only pale yellowed
fibers, but by a higher density of more colored fibers, with a wide range of colors: from brown-dark
burned fibers to few pale yellow fibers with the gradient described above.
- No striation or bundles of more colored fibers are seen in any scorched areas.
- The “signature” of a scorch is found in all kind of scorches, even in very light and light scorches:
even at the lowest temperature, some protruding burned fibers are observed and many small
opaque brown to dark burned pieces of fibers are easily found everywhere in the sticky-tape
experiments. This was not the case for the direct observations with the microscope on the Shroud in
1978 or on the sticky-tapes.
All these differences are related to the fundamental properties of color distribution resulting from
the scorching of any linen fabric, i.e. the fact that a scorch is a contact-only mechanism associated
with the very low heat conductivity of linen and the spatial geometry of the fabric. This is inevitable.
The TS image is not a scorch, even a light scorch. In fact, this old hypothesis is very easy to rule out
definitively as the body image formation mechanism with some basic experiments and a microscope.

https://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.c ... per-en.pdf

Questions left unresolved with the bas-relief:

If the cloth was pressed against the body, there should be severe wrapping distortion. How was this avoided?
Since the image is only the result of fibers that have oxidized/dehydrated, how was this achieved?
How was a negative effect achieved and why even try to produce a negative image?
Why are the ears missing?
Why is there no imaging on the top of the head?
How was half-tone imaging achieved?
Why should there be 3-D information encoding through a bas-relief?
Why should there be x-ray imaging effects?
Why is there imaging on the back side of the cloth?
How were the blood stains formed?
Why are there some blood stains outside the body image?
Who did the bas-relief?
If it was a work of art, then why is the TS not recognized by the art community?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2556

Did you have some purpose in re-posting that lengthy discourse and not explaining the absence of imaging over the head?

Going on and on about this and that may----at first glance----make it look like you're saying something, but you have to address the argument.

[Adonai Yahweh]

How does one choose? Or doesn't it matter what every god's word is?


The translations of the bible are both formal and functional . Formal ( KJV etc) prioritizes the linguistic form whereas functional (NLT etc )priorities the receiver grasping the intended meaning . When it comes to God word a Christian should be reading with both the formal and functional aspect . To grasp the linguistic form and intended meaning to full understand the scriptures

[JoeyKnothead]

How does one choose? Or doesn't it matter what every god's word is?

The translations of the bible are both formal and functional . Formal ( KJV etc) prioritizes the linguistic form whereas functional (NLT etc )priorities the receiver grasping the intended meaning . When it comes to God word a Christian should be reading with both the formal and functional aspect . To grasp the linguistic form and intended meaning to full understand the scriptures

What part in either of the referenced examples can be confirmed to be God's word/s?

[Adonai Yahweh]

What part in either of the referenced examples can be confirmed to be God's word/s?

Its God word because it been translated from the original languages