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

[brunumb]

No mention of God writing anything in your first point. And, I don't have to prove it is not God's word. You fail to go beyond a mere claim that it is God's word and provide no compelling verification of that claim. Claims are a dime a dozen and not even worth that. What a joke.

Are you trying to deny that eyewitness written account is not credible evidence as someones word just because the actual person , themselves has not written anything because that would mean that historical figures like Socrates and Confucius did not actually say the teachings they said just because there were written by their students .

OK. I am happy to accept that Socrates and Confucius did not say what they are credited with saying. Someone said those things, but I am confident it was not God. If it was their students as you say, then good on 'em. Great words.

The Gospel is an eyewitness account of what Jesus said . The scriptures are also consistent with each other . If more that 40 different men from 3 different continent and have never met each other all saying the same thing then it is true that is Gods word because of the compelling evidence of the consistency in the scriptures .

More unsupported claims. Name these eyewitnesses please. Who were these 40 different men and precisely what were the same things that they all said? The inconsistencies within scripture have been thoroughly thrashed out and it is disingenuous to claim that consistency is what is compelling evidence for their truth. Nothing in the Bible requires there to have been an external supernatural intervention for what was written.

And yes you do have to prove that is not God word , because if you're going to say its not then you should be able to provide compelling verification of that claim as well . And the real question is what credible method will be used to prove your claim ?

I am not making the definitive claim that the Bible is not God's word. I am saying that you have not met your burden of proof that God was responsible and, based on what we know, it is highly unlikely that any god was involved at all. On balance, everything points to a purely human origin for what was written.

[brunumb]

The account of Jesus is not just the bible but also written by non-christian historians such as Tacitus and Josephus .

Tacitus and Josephus gave no accounts of the life of Jesus. All we have are a few vague references to a character named Jesus. They add nothing compelling in the way of evidence.

[gr]

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2655

Interestingly, Nickell does not show in the video the final image of the cloth pressed flat, as what we would expect to see. Instead, he shows a a picture taken of cloth pressed against the face. If he had actually showed the cloth stretched flat, the image distortions would've refuted the claim a bas-relief was used.

We do see the face on the Turin cloth pressed flat and it has none of the side-of-head distortion it should have if it surrounded a body.

Look at Nickell's model above. Though it's not Jesus (which is by itself strange since isn't he try to replicate the TS?)

He was demonstrating a replication of a technique.

there are ears on his model. So even Nickell didn't omit ears with his model in his replication attempt.

....which further suggests that there were no ears on the Turin cloth bas-relief.

A bas-relief does, but simply staining a cloth pressed against it does not. The reason there is depth encoding is there is a correlation between cloth to body distance and colored fiber density. Simply applying dabs on a bas-relief will not produce this.

....unless the cloth isn't pressed all the way against the bas-relief.

The bas-relief sculpture would've had to make the body anatomically accurate, except for the fingers.

You're forgetting about the enlongated face.

I'm not talking about the dorsal and ventral images on the same side of the cloth. On the other side of the cloth, there is a faint image that correspond in the facial area with the front side.

First draft?

Angle encoding means there is a relationship between the angle of the cloth relative to the horizontal plane of the body and the image discoloration density. The more angle, the less imaging. So, for areas where the cloth is perpendicular to the ground, there is no imaging.

You don't like the radiation hypothesis because it works only vertically and not omnidirectionally, but now you're trying to make "angle encoding" do the same thing. You seem to have given up on the dematerializing body creating a vaccuum.

The cloth would collapse into the dematerializing body

And again, without a vaccuum this doesn't account for the back image.

Angle distortion explains the long fingers and second order distortion of facial proportions.

Then the long fingers aren't an x-ray effect.


The top of the cranium is curved, so the area of a supine figure's cranial top which is perpendicular to the ground is quite small. This means that the cloth collapse/angle encoding scenario would cause the part of the cloth covering the frontal curve above the forehead to drop straight down through the curvature and still be in contact with the body. Jesus' head would have had to look like Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein's monster for there to have been such a wide perpenticular area between the front and back.

[boatsnguitars]

[Replying to boatsnguitars in post #2661]

Not sure what you mean by the bold and non-bolded. Also I've already addressed many of these.

The only question I see that I've never addressed is "Why are there some blood stains outside the body image?"

But, since I asked the question first, what is your response?

Looks like a painting. Not sure why it's important to ask why there are blood stains outside the image?

[Adonai Yahweh]

What about Socrates, Confucius, or their students allows us to confirm the claims of biblical 'eyewitnesses'?

Clearly your reading the statements . Socarates and Confucius teachings and what they said we written by their students not themselves but no one discredits them because it is an eyewitness written account . The same with the gospel it was written by men that traveled and lived with Jesus

The claim that Jesus is a 'histirical figure's bumps up against the claimant's inability to confirm how a virgin pregnancy can produce a y chromosome.

*historical . Again I've already given you an answer , but I'll simplify for you a God is an omnipotent being that is a spirit , to take physical form it needs a physical body , because it is God the natural way of giving birth does not apply because that you would mean that you are equating God to humans . Because mere mortals have limited power and we are dependent on each other to acquire power . To get a physical body you need a woman .. hence why he came through a woman . Chromosomes apply to human beings ... an omnipotent being does not have chromosomes

I'm not bound to the methodology of historians.

If you are not bound to the methodology of historians then your argument is useless .. because the same methodology is applied to various historical events . The bible was not written in current times ..manuscripts were written in the 7th century and before that showing that it is a historical book . Historians are more qualified than you and are experts in the field of history ....to disregard their methodology is illogical and you disregard it based on what qualifications . The vast majority of historians agree that Jesus Christ did exist because apart from the Christian sources there are non-Christian sources that attest to his existence . In which I provided the names to go and look up

On a map. My sarcasm has nothing to do with it.

That's nonsense , your sarcasm shows that your unable to make a valid argument . Because your claiming that the statement that is another way of saying " 3 different continents converge " Your geography is lacking how many years ago did the continents converge and how many years are there in a century ?

That's aging, of which logic doesn't give a hoot.

If English is your first language ... what does intellectual maturity mean ?? One of the aspects that contribute to logical thinking is experience which is intellectual maturity

I'm seeking to confirm if you speak truth in your various biblical claims. Thus far you've stymied my efforts at every turn.

If you are seeking the truth and your claiming that I speak of a falsehood then you should provide the evidence that shows what you believe in , is indeed the truth . And it not shifting a burden . Instead coming up with phrases also provide evidence that disapproves my point .

Read the site rules .

[Diogenes]

*dona* Y****h" the blasphemer wrote:

....
The Gospel is an eyewitness account of what Jesus said . The scriptures are also consistent with each other .

These are both false statements. Bible scholars agree the gospels were written by anonymous people long after the contemporaries of Jesus were dead. Your ignorance of the source of the Bible is staggering so you should refrain from lecturing others about which you are ignorant.

The canonical gospels are the four which appear in the New Testament of the Bible. They were probably written between AD 66 and 110. All four were anonymous (with the modern names of the "Four Evangelists" added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission.

Perkins, Pheme (1998). "The Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles: Telling the Christian Story". In Barton, John (ed.). The Cambridge companion to biblical interpretation. Westminster John Knox Press.
Reddish, Mitchell (2011). An Introduction to The Gospels. Abingdon Press.
Lincoln, Andrew (2005). Gospel According to St John. Bloomsbury Publishing.

The gospels contradict each other in many instances, particularly about the details of the imagined 'resurrection.' If you actually are willing to examine this issue, here's a free book to read:
The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity
https://infidels.org/library/modern/tho ... rstcoming/

[otseng]

[Replying to otseng in post #2655

Interestingly, Nickell does not show in the video the final image of the cloth pressed flat, as what we would expect to see. Instead, he shows a a picture taken of cloth pressed against the face. If he had actually showed the cloth stretched flat, the image distortions would've refuted the claim a bas-relief was used.

We do see the face on the Turin cloth pressed flat and it has none of the side-of-head distortion it should have if it surrounded a body.

Let's do a simple thought experiment. Press a cloth against the entire surface of a face on a bas-relief, and then you put a dot at the center of each eye. Then flatten the cloth and measure the distance between the eyes - distance E1. Now take a ruler and place it over the bas-relief and measure the distance between the eyes - distance E2. E1 would be longer than E2 because the cloth would not be straight when pressed against the face, but would go up and down to conform to the eye socket and the bridge of nose. This distance discrepancy would be true for any two distance between the face that involves curvature of the face. These distance differences would result in facial distortions.

Let's see what Nickell did. First he pressed the cloth completely flat against the face and applied a stain.

"when you finish you will have the cloth tightly molded to the bas-relief it will fit it rather like a mask"



Then he stained it. And then they show this image:



There is no way the above image is what you would get if you took the cloth off the bas-relief and then pressed it flat. Rather, the only way to get that image is if you took a photo of the stained cloth while it was on the bas-relief. Then put the photo on a frame, and then apply staples to the edge to fool people to think it was actually a cloth.

Look at Nickell's model above. Though it's not Jesus (which is by itself strange since isn't he try to replicate the TS?)

He was demonstrating a replication of a technique.

I will grant that the technique "Nickell produced an image of similar color and tone to the face on the shroud" (as mentioned in 15:48 of the video). But that's about it. The bas-relief doesn't really explain anything. Again, if you stain a cloth on a bas-relief, there would be severe distortions.

A bas-relief does, but simply staining a cloth pressed against it does not. The reason there is depth encoding is there is a correlation between cloth to body distance and colored fiber density. Simply applying dabs on a bas-relief will not produce this.

....unless the cloth isn't pressed all the way against the bas-relief.

Doesn't make sense either. One would need to know the distance of the cloth to the body in order to have the proper coloring density. Nobody would go through this much trouble, even if they knew about the concept of depth encoding (which we didn't even know about until the 1970s). And even though we know about the concept now, we don't really know how to replicate this artistically.

The bas-relief sculpture would've had to make the body anatomically accurate, except for the fingers.

You're forgetting about the enlongated face.

Yes, the enlongated face as well. Which further doesn't make any sense. What was the artist trying to reproduce? A medically accurate body or a replication of Byzantine art? From an artistic point of view, it cannot have been both.

In the case of the authenticist view, it makes more sense. The image is from an anatomically correct body, but the second order distortions (long fingers, elongated face) are an imaging artifact.

I'm not talking about the dorsal and ventral images on the same side of the cloth. On the other side of the cloth, there is a faint image that correspond in the facial area with the front side.

First draft?

Doubtful since it doesn't even look like a draft. Also, where we do have imaging, it matches the front side. Here's the image again:

Angle encoding means there is a relationship between the angle of the cloth relative to the horizontal plane of the body and the image discoloration density. The more angle, the less imaging. So, for areas where the cloth is perpendicular to the ground, there is no imaging.

You don't like the radiation hypothesis because it works only vertically and not omnidirectionally, but now you're trying to make "angle encoding" do the same thing. You seem to have given up on the dematerializing body creating a vaccuum.

Never said I've given up on a dematerializing body. That is where the evidence leads to. And obviously a dematerializing body would cause a vacuum.

For radiation, there are two proposals for directionality - either vertically collimated or omnidirectional. I don't accept the vertically collimated, but it still could be possible neutrons were emitted omnidirectionally.

I think all authenticists agree there is some sort of linear image formation involved. In order to take a picture of something, we have to direct light through a lens. Without a lens, the only other way to have an image is like a laser where there is no light dispersion. So that is why vertically collimated is proposed.

Instead of radiation going from the point of origin to the cloth, another way to do it is the cloth goes to the point of origin and then interacts with it, which is what the cloth collapse theory proposes. No vertical collimation is required.

The cloth would collapse into the dematerializing body

And again, without a vaccuum this doesn't account for the back image.

Since I've always stated there would be a vacuum, it would account for it.

Angle distortion explains the long fingers and second order distortion of facial proportions.

Then the long fingers aren't an x-ray effect.

There's two factors with the long fingers - angle encoding and x-ray effect.

Jesus' head would have had to look like Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein's monster for there to have been such a wide perpenticular area between the front and back.

Doing a rough experiment, it's entirely possible for the shroud to cover the head and yet have the head gap with no imaging. I took a towel and covered my head and measured the distance from my chin to the back of my neck. Then I measured the distance from my chin to my eyes. Using a photograph of the TS, I measured the same distances. The ratio of chin to eye and chin to back of head on both are similar.

[otseng]

Looks like a painting. Not sure why it's important to ask why there are blood stains outside the image?

The imaging is a depiction of the body. If there is blood outside the body image, how can someone bleed outside of their body?

[JoeyKnothead]

What about Socrates, Confucius, or their students allows us to confirm the claims of biblical 'eyewitnesses'?

Clearly your reading the statements . Socarates and Confucius teachings and what they said we written by their students not themselves but no one discredits them because it is an eyewitness written account. The same with the gospel it was written by men that traveled and lived with Jesus.

Unless you can quote me making claims regarding Socrates and Confucius,you'll never feed the masses with that fish.

Your beliefs do not magically create facts.

The claim that Jesus is a 'historical figure's bumps up against the claimant's inability to confirm how a virgin pregnancy can produce a y chromosome.

*historical.

Preciate it. Corrected.

Again I've already given you an answer , but I'll simplify for you a God is an omnipotent being that is a spirit , to take physical form it needs a physical body , because it is God the natural way of giving birth does not apply because that you would mean that you are equating God to humans.

Now that you're done with the claim, try to put truth to it.

Because mere mortals have limited power and we are dependent on each other to acquire power . To get a physical body you need a woman .. hence why he came through a woman . Chromosomes apply to human beings ... an omnipotent being does not have chromosomes.

So Jesus, who had a physical body, must have had chromosomes. Males have an x and a y. Where'd Mary find her a y chromosome?

I'm not bound to the methodology of historians.

If you are not bound to the methodology of historians then your argument is useless because the same methodology is applied to various historical events.

My "argument" is to find out if your claims are truthful. Thus far all I've seen is you presenting more claims in an effort to shore up your previous claims.

The bible was not written in current times ..manuscripts were written in the 7th century and before that showing that it is a historical book . Historians are more qualified than you and are experts in the field of history ....to disregard their methodology is illogical and you disregard it based on what qualifications .

You're the one claiming, or implying, that the methodology of historians should be held reliable, so the matter of qualifications is on you.

What are your qualifications, that you can declare the methodology of historians supports your biblical claims?

The vast majority of historians agree that Jesus Christ did exist because apart from the Christian sources there are non-Christian sources that attest to his existence . In which I provided the names to go and look up

Please present just one historian who can offer a means to confirm how a virgin female can produce a y chromosome.

On a map. My sarcasm has nothing to do with it.

That's nonsense , your sarcasm shows that your unable to make a valid argument. Because your claiming that the statement that is another way of saying " 3 different continents converge " Your geography is lacking how many years ago did the continents converge and how many years are there in a century ?

What in the name of devilled eggs is your problem with geography?

That's aging, of which logic doesn't give a hoot.

If English is your first language ... what does intellectual maturity mean ??

I referred to your use of "maturity", but with your clarification, we now refer to "intellectual maturity", and still neither one are reliable indicators of logical thought in a particular matter.

Heck, many Christians'd pass "intellectual maturity", but logic is a whole nother thing.

One of the aspects that contribute to logical thinking is experience which is intellectual maturity

Then let us all bow our heads and say a silent prayer for the unfortunate passing of your intellectual maturity.

I'm seeking to confirm if you speak truth in your various biblical claims. Thus far you've stymied my efforts at every turn.

If you are seeking the truth and your claiming that I speak of a falsehood then you should provide the evidence that shows what you believe in , is indeed the truth .

My beliefs have no bearing on your inability to support your claims.

And it not shifting a burden . Instead coming up with phrases also provide evidence that disapproves my point .

Read the site rules .

Site rules indicate the Bible is not considered authoritative in the C&A section of the site. Is that the rule you wanted me to understand?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2667

And again, without a vaccuum this doesn't account for the back image.

Since I've always stated there would be a vacuum, it would account for it.

And I've pointed out that a vaccuum would also cause the cloth covering the top of the head to be pushed inward, an observation you haven't been able to refute.

Doing a rough experiment, it's entirely possible for the shroud to cover the head and yet have the head gap with no imaging. I took a towel and covered my head and measured the distance from my chin to the back of my neck. Then I measured the distance from my chin to my eyes. Using a photograph of the TS, I measured the same distances. The ratio of chin to eye and chin to back of head on both are similar.

To fine-tune your rough experiment:

Stand a flat object perpendicular to the floor, lie supine with the top of your head touching the object and measure the area of your head covered by the vertical surface.