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

[boatsnguitars]

Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died.

No it isn't.

How can you claim this? If i were to ask anyone - except you, and a few other highly motivated religious people - would they agree that your statement is true?

It appears you are trying to stretch the truth - much like the artist of the Shroud...

[otseng]

I did read all of your post, otseng, and as previously explained, all those sightings of Jesus after the attempted execution do prove that he survived.

Not sure you read all of it since I stated "the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died" yet you never addressed this.

I don't know much about the holy grail

I'd highly recommend studying it. It's actually quite interesting and obviously related to the story of Joseph going to Britain.

but I know why Joseph would go to Cornwall.
Joseph was a merchant and for hundreds of years the bronze age had depended upon the Cornwall mines.....for tin!

Where in the Bible does it say Joseph of Arimathea was a merchant?

The entire account of Joseph going to Britain is legendary.

In 1989, folklore scholar A. W. Smith critically examined the accretion of legends around Joseph of Arimathea. Often associated with William Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time" and its musical setting, widely known as the hymn "Jerusalem", the legend is commonly held as "an almost secret yet passionately held article of faith among certain otherwise quite orthodox Christians" and Smith concluded "that there was little reason to believe that an oral tradition concerning a visit made by Jesus to Britain existed before the early part of the twentieth century".[18] Sabine Baring-Gould recounted a Cornish story how "Joseph of Arimathea came in a boat to Cornwall, and brought the child Jesus with him, and the latter taught him how to extract the tin and purge it of its wolfram. This story possibly grew out of the fact that the Jews under the Angevin kings farmed the tin of Cornwall."[19] In its most developed version, Joseph, a tin merchant, visited Cornwall, accompanied by his nephew, the boy Jesus. Reverend C.C. Dobson (1879–1960) made a case for the authenticity of the Glastonbury legenda.[20] The case was argued more recently by the Church of Scotland minister Gordon Strachan (1934–2010) [21] and by the former archaeologist Dennis Price.[22]

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

The question is what part of the legend is true and what part is false? I do believe Christianity came to Britain early, but I do not believe it was through Joseph.

That hymn which which we sang and still do made mentions of all this and nearly became the British National Anthem!

Yes, Jerusalem is considered the unofficial national anthem.

https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-a ... hymn-55668

[otseng]

How can you claim this? If i were to ask anyone - except you, and a few other highly motivated religious people - would they agree that your statement is true?

Here is the summary of my arguments why I believe the shroud to be authentic:

viewtopic.php?p=1126026#p1126026

It could be the evidence I've presented is flawed. Feel free to provide any counterevidence to what I've argued.

[otseng]

[Replying to Waterfall in post #2956]

This thread is about arguing for the authority of the Bible. Again, you'll need to create a separate thread to debate on the authority of any other book, including Toward the Light.

Please note rule 4:
4. Stay on the topic of debate. If a topic brings up another issue, start another thread.

viewtopic.php?t=6

[boatsnguitars]

Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died.

How can you claim this? If i were to ask anyone - except you, and a few other highly motivated religious people - would they agree that your statement is true?

Here is the summary of my arguments why I believe the shroud to be authentic:

viewtopic.php?p=1126026#p1126026

It could be the evidence I've presented is flawed. Feel free to provide any counterevidence to what I've argued.

No. You have presented your case. It's been argued against, and while you don't accept the criticism, everyone else (barring religious extremists) has agreed you are cherry-picking, anomaly-hunting and basically doing a poor job of making your case.

I know you can't let it go, but that's not our burden. It's not even our burden to prove you wrong - it's yours. Just like it's not your responsibility to prove Nessie doesn't exist.

But that doesn't mean Nessie does exist.

Your leap of logic is a perfect example of what you keep missing about your own "scholarship". You simply don't even understand when you make a logical error.

You don't even see why your statement, "Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died." is wrong.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2944

If they have a vested interest in it being genuine, then they must believe it is genuine.

Having a vested interest in it being genuine is why they want it to be genuine.

So it's more of an indication nobody really knows about the shroud or is out to looking to buy books for more information on it (except people like me).

Nobody really knows about it? Hardly. It's one of the most famous relics in the world. And if no one is out looking for information on it, maybe that's because they don't accept the claim either.

Yes, the passage is in the Torah. But that passage doesn't specifically use the word Torah. So, it's a leap to say that passage is referring to the entire Torah.

Just because the word "torah" isn't in a particular passage doesn't mean that the word doesn't apply to the entire law where it does appear. And the command in Deuteronomy is to obey all of the "torah" in that book.


That's how they follow the command. It isn't taking the command away or adding any other.

If you say this is true for the Jews and the 3rd of the 10 commandments, then your example of Jesus and divorce would apply as well, he was not taking away or adding to it.

Yes, he was. He was prohibiting divorces beyond sexual immorality which the law allowed.

What Christians do with the Torah's commands is irrelevant.

It's relevant because obviously no Christian follows the law in its entirety, so no Christian interprets the law literally. Yet you are espousing a hyper literalistic that really no one holds to.

It isn't relevant, because when the law of Moses was written there were no Christians. And I'm "espousing" what the law itself says to do.

There's nothing really from stopping them from building a temple. Now, they might be prevented to build it on a particular spot, but there's no commandment in the Bible that I know of that says the temple must be built at a specific location.

Then why didn't they just stay in Babylon and build a temple there?


"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven....." (Matthew 5:19)

Which commandment did he break?

You should be able to tell me, since you yourself said that he didn't follow all of the commandments.

But if you still want an example, lets put Numbers, Deuteronomy and Matthew in context together and see how it comes out:

"You have read in the Torah that Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.

And you have also read in the Torah:
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you,

But I say to you, swear not at all".

Jesus was being hypocritical if he saw fit to play fast and loose with the commands of the law while telling everyone else that if they broke one jot or tittle they would be least in the kingdom of heaven.

Which is more loving? To divorce simply because a man has an issue with his wife or to stay with his wife in any situation except for infidelity?

Which is more loving? To condemn a divorced woman to spend the rest of her life alone (Matthew 5:32) or to let her remarry (Deut. 24:2)?

That's another problem: Jesus says that a divorced woman and her new husband are commiting adultery when Moses clearly says that they're not.

I see Jesus as applying an even higher standard than the law of Moses.

If the law of Moses was given by God (Deut. 1:3), how could any standard be higher?

But the method he used was directing more to the heart of the law than to the letter of the law.

Except that in Matthew 5 he tries to do both.


In the context of the passage, it obviously means "follow" or "adhere to".

You'll need to dig deeper. How do dictionaries and lexicons define the word in the Hebrew and the Greek?

There's no need to dig deeper. It's not about defining it in Hebrew or Greek; it's defined by the context of the passage.


Why couldn't it be "interpreted" as having been true in Jesus's time but not after that?

That's not an interpretation.

Sure it is. All you have to do is attach your own meaning to what's written----that is, if you don't like what's written.

What conclusion are referring to? That Jesus was resurrected? The conclusion of this was based on the TS.

The conclusion is based on what you choose to believe about it, dismissing the shortcomings and holes in the evidence.

So, you'll need to base your counterarguments against the artifact evidence, not textual claims.

The textual claims are evidence that Jesus wasn't the Jewish Messiah, and that's evidence against the Turin cloth whether you like it or not.

[oldbadger]

Not sure you read all of it since I stated "the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died" yet you never addressed this.

You have debated that the 'Turin Shroud is genuine' with so many members, but I don't believe that it is, otseng. If it had been dated to circa 1st century then that might have helped, but it has not been.

I'd highly recommend studying it. It's actually quite interesting and obviously related to the story of Joseph going to Britain.

I'm going to spend more time upon this, but a drinking cup won't bring outright credence to my heart.

Where in the Bible does it say Joseph of Arimathea was a merchant?

Nowhere, but Joseph was a member of the Priesthood and wealthy and so he had to have had a livelihood and the Cornish tradition would strongly suggest that he was a trader.

The entire account of Joseph going to Britain is legendary.

That's right........... after 2000 years we won't be finding too much exact evidence......... there isn't much at all. The gospel accounts offer secondary, tertiary and indirect evidence, and although some of Paul's letters are clearly genuine it's a sad fact that Paul didn't write a line about anything that Jesus ever said or did in life (apart from last meal and last hours).

The question is what part of the legend is true and what part is false? I do believe Christianity came to Britain early, but I do not believe it was through Joseph.

I'm never going to know, but the tradition is not so much about Joseph bringing Christianity to Britain but Jesus, and Jesus was a Jew, so the first temple founded by him wouldn't have been called 'Christian' because Joseph spoke Aramaic, we know. Jesus was a Meshiah.

Yes, Jerusalem is considered the unofficial national anthem.

Yes, indeed.

[otseng]

Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died.

How can you claim this? If i were to ask anyone - except you, and a few other highly motivated religious people - would they agree that your statement is true?

Here is the summary of my arguments why I believe the shroud to be authentic:

viewtopic.php?p=1126026#p1126026

It could be the evidence I've presented is flawed. Feel free to provide any counterevidence to what I've argued.

No. You have presented your case. It's been argued against, and while you don't accept the criticism, everyone else (barring religious extremists) has agreed you are cherry-picking, anomaly-hunting and basically doing a poor job of making your case.

I know you can't let it go, but that's not our burden. It's not even our burden to prove you wrong - it's yours. Just like it's not your responsibility to prove Nessie doesn't exist.

But that doesn't mean Nessie does exist.

Your leap of logic is a perfect example of what you keep missing about your own "scholarship". You simply don't even understand when you make a logical error.

You don't even see why your statement, "Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died." is wrong.

I asked for evidence, not simply asserting a claim. If it's a fake, shouldn't it be easy to disprove? Shouldn't there be an abundance of evidence to demonstrate it's a fake? Why should skeptics have to continually just make baseless assertions without any supporting evidence?

[boatsnguitars]

Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died.

How can you claim this? If i were to ask anyone - except you, and a few other highly motivated religious people - would they agree that your statement is true?

Here is the summary of my arguments why I believe the shroud to be authentic:

viewtopic.php?p=1126026#p1126026

It could be the evidence I've presented is flawed. Feel free to provide any counterevidence to what I've argued.

No. You have presented your case. It's been argued against, and while you don't accept the criticism, everyone else (barring religious extremists) has agreed you are cherry-picking, anomaly-hunting and basically doing a poor job of making your case.

I know you can't let it go, but that's not our burden. It's not even our burden to prove you wrong - it's yours. Just like it's not your responsibility to prove Nessie doesn't exist.

But that doesn't mean Nessie does exist.

Your leap of logic is a perfect example of what you keep missing about your own "scholarship". You simply don't even understand when you make a logical error.

You don't even see why your statement, "Again, the TS is tangible evidence Jesus had died." is wrong.

I asked for evidence, not simply asserting a claim. If it's a fake, shouldn't it be easy to disprove? Shouldn't there be an abundance of evidence to demonstrate it's a fake? Why should skeptics have to continually just make baseless assertions without any supporting evidence?

You've been doing this long enough to know that many people believe things that have been proved fake, yet, they continue to believe and continue to present "evidence" they claim hasn't been refuted. big Foot, Flat Earth, GW Deniers, Evolution deniers, etc...

[otseng]

Having a vested interest in it being genuine is why they want it to be genuine.

How do you know they want it to be genuine when they have never claimed it was genuine? Makes no sense either.

Nobody really knows about it? Hardly. It's one of the most famous relics in the world. And if no one is out looking for information on it, maybe that's because they don't accept the claim either.

I don't think I've ever claimed nobody knows anything about it. What I stated was, " I would dare say most Catholics, esp those under 40, know very little, if anything, about the TS" and "Why would the church care either way if most don't even know much about it?"

Just because the word "torah" isn't in a particular passage doesn't mean that the word doesn't apply to the entire law where it does appear.

This is the argument from silence. Further, there is no corroborating evidence for this either. As I've argued, the evidence is against the Torah being limited to the commandments of Moses and is locked in stone since the Torah has expanded over time.

Yes, he was. He was prohibiting divorces beyond sexual immorality which the law allowed.

I think we agree Jesus's teachings were much more demanding than the law of Moses. Did it he literally add to the law? Yes, if one approaches it with a literal view of the law. And as I argued, even the Jews added to the law. But, I do not believe he contradicted with the intent of the law.

Mat 5:17
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

In his entire sermon on the mount, what Jesus was getting to was our heart, not our outward performances of piety. We can literally follow the law and yet inwardly we are still unclean.

Mat 23:27
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

It isn't relevant, because when the law of Moses was written there were no Christians.

Not even the Jews interprets the law literally. Go into any Jewish home and you'll find many practices that is never mentioned in the law of Moses.

There's nothing really from stopping them from building a temple. Now, they might be prevented to build it on a particular spot, but there's no commandment in the Bible that I know of that says the temple must be built at a specific location.

Then why didn't they just stay in Babylon and build a temple there?

Yes, the Jews want to build the temple at a particular spot. Modern Jews have an extremely particular spot they want to build it, but unfortunately it's occupied by the Dome of the Rock, which the Muslims control. Again, does the law of Moses state exactly where to build it?

You should be able to tell me, since you yourself said that he didn't follow all of the commandments.

You're the one making the claim, not me. I've never claimed he broke any commandment.

Jesus was being hypocritical if he saw fit to play fast and loose with the commands of the law while telling everyone else that if they broke one jot or tittle they would be least in the kingdom of heaven.

Your argument boils down to Jesus broke the command not to add to the commands. Again, I believe it was an interpretation of the command as you acknowledged that the Jews also did with the passages on divorce.

[Replying to otseng in post #2934

Since there were differences of interpretation between the Shammai and Hillel, why should it be unusual for another rabbi, Jesus, to have another interpretation?

All well and good----if you recognize Jesus as just another rabbi.

Which is more loving? To condemn a divorced woman to spend the rest of her life alone (Matthew 5:32) or to let her remarry (Deut. 24:2)?

Jesus never commanded for her to remain alone, he said whoever marries her would also commit adultery.

Mat 5:32
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

If the law of Moses was given by God (Deut. 1:3), how could any standard be higher?

Because Jesus is part of the Godhead and the Bible is a part of the Godhead. The Bible is not some all-powerful, inerrant, supernatural object of worship.

If there's any "contradiction" between the NT and the OT, Jesus's teaching would supercede them. As a matter of fact, Jesus preceded the writings of Moses. The original word was Jesus himself.

[Jhn 1:1-3 KJV] 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus being preeminent over the Torah is seen also in the transfiguration.

[Mar 9:2-7 NKJV] 2 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. 4 And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"-- 6 because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. 7 And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!"

Moses and Elijah were on the mount representing the law and the prophets. Jesus is on another level compared to the Tanakh. He is actually God's son. And we should hear him.

You'll need to dig deeper. How do dictionaries and lexicons define the word in the Hebrew and the Greek?

There's no need to dig deeper. It's not about defining it in Hebrew or Greek; it's defined by the context of the passage.

Then it explains why you have a misunderstanding of scripture since you are not looking at it in the original languages.

Why couldn't it be "interpreted" as having been true in Jesus's time but not after that?

That's not an interpretation.

Sure it is. All you have to do is attach your own meaning to what's written----that is, if you don't like what's written.

It's not me that doesn't like what he said. Simply saying whatever he meant is no longer applicable is not explaining what you think he meant. So, what do you think Jesus mean by his statement:

Jhn 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

What conclusion are referring to? That Jesus was resurrected? The conclusion of this was based on the TS.

The conclusion is based on what you choose to believe about it, dismissing the shortcomings and holes in the evidence.

I've fully investigated the arguments against the TS and I've addressed them already. Is there any empirical evidence I've missed with the TS?

So, you'll need to base your counterarguments against the artifact evidence, not textual claims.

The textual claims are evidence that Jesus wasn't the Jewish Messiah, and that's evidence against the Turin cloth whether you like it or not.

We can go a long time arguing through the Bible if Jesus was the Messiah or not. But that has not been my tactic so far. I've seen many debates on this, in particular things that Rabbi Tovia Singer has said. I might cover some of his arguments later, but the focus is on empirical evidence, not textual evidence.