Was the Bible dictated by God or men?

[polonius]

Virtually all Christian religions use the Bible (Old and New Testament) as their authoritative source document. Most claim that the Bible was dictated by God and hence is completely authoritative. (see 2 Timothy).

Pope Leo XIII, in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, explains how inspiration affected the biblical writers.

“By supernatural power God so moved and impelled them to write. He was so present to them, that they rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and �nally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth the things which He ordered, and those only.�

But is this really true, or has it been rethought in modern times?

[imhereforyou]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

99.99999999999 (etc)% this isn't true personally. But I don't know. What I do know is that the bible didn't do much for me personally, individually and specifically that would denote it as special so there's that.

[steveb1]

Virtually all Christian religions use the Bible (Old and New Testament) as their authoritative source document. Most claim that the Bible was dictated by God and hence is completely authoritative. (see 2 Timothy).

Pope Leo XIII, in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, explains how inspiration affected the biblical writers.

“By supernatural power God so moved and impelled them to write. He was so present to them, that they rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and �nally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth the things which He ordered, and those only.�

But is this really true, or has it been rethought in modern times?

My personal view is that the Bible is not the Word or Words of God, but rather the words of ancient Jews and Christians about God and other matters of the Spirit. My belief is that certain spiritual experiences reported in the Jewish Bible and the Christian Testament are profoundly true and indicative of human beings' encounter with what I like to call the Sacred Transcendent. So I would tend to read the Bible for spiritual and moral instruction based on my prior belief in the legitimacy of mystical experience, and in the belief that the Bible has significant things to say about that. But I don't read the Bible as an inspired or inerrant "recording" of God speaking to the authors.

[polonius]

Virtually all Christian religions use the Bible (Old and New Testament) as their authoritative source document. Most claim that the Bible was dictated by God and hence is completely authoritative. (see 2 Timothy).

Pope Leo XIII, in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, explains how inspiration affected the biblical writers.

“By supernatural power God so moved and impelled them to write. He was so present to them, that they rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and �nally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth the things which He ordered, and those only.�

But is this really true, or has it been rethought in modern times?

My personal view is that the Bible is not the Word or Words of God, but rather the words of ancient Jews and Christians about God and other matters of the Spirit. My belief is that certain spiritual experiences reported in the Jewish Bible and the Christian Testament are profoundly true and indicative of human beings' encounter with what I like to call the Sacred Transcendent. So I would tend to read the Bible for spiritual and moral instruction based on my prior belief in the legitimacy of mystical experience, and in the belief that the Bible has significant things to say about that. But I don't read the Bible as an inspired or inerrant "recording" of God speaking to the authors.

RESPONSE: Well put! If there is interest in this question, I'll try to add information I have gathered.

I might call you attention to one of the sources I find useful and pretty accurate.

"The group started ReligiousTolerance.org in 1995 to counter what they
perceive as a proliferation of misinformation about various religions
and a lack of religious tolerance on the World wide web. The site
contains essays on a variety of topics related to world religions,
morality, spirituality, religious intolerance, and new religious
movements. The group states that they attempt to write accurate,
impartial, and balanced essays that reference reliable sources."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerrant.htm

On 2007-MAY-25, Gallup reported the results of a national poll on Biblical inerrancy.

31% believe that "The Bible is the actual word of God, and is to be taken literally, word for word." This would imply acceptance of biblical inerrancy.

47% believe that "The Bible is the inspired word of God, but not everything in it should be taken literally."

19% believe that "The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."

3% were uncertain or didn't answer.

margin of error was ~+mn~3 percentage points.

[polonius]

Formal education can have a devastating effect on a person's belief in inerrancy.

46% of persons with high school education or less believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally.

This dropped to 22% for persons with some college education, and to 15% among college graduates.

[1213]

Virtually all Christian religions use the Bible (Old and New Testament) as their authoritative source document. Most claim that the Bible was dictated by God...

Luke tells about how he wrote, on basis of the testimonies of people who saw the things:

Since many have undertaken to set in order a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus; that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed.
Luke 1:1-4

That is why I think Bible is at least not entirely dictated by God. However, I believe God has guided the process for example by giving the spirit of truth.

[polonius]

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

This in essence outlines the fundamentalist view of the Bible. Is it correct? If it is not what errors does it lead to?

[Hawkins]

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

This in essence outlines the fundamentalist view of the Bible. Is it correct? If it is not what errors does it lead to?

Yes and no. They are basically correct but superficial.

The big picture is;

Humans are creatures of the present. They are all cut from direct access of both the past and future. That's why you can't even tell what you yourself did today but a year ago. The 7 billion humans on earth can't tell what they themselves did a year ago. This is so because they are cut from direct access of the past.

You can't tell what you yourself did a year ago. However if an eyewitness wrote (or better taped) what you did that day, we can thus know what you did that day by putting faith in what is said by that eyewitness. That is the way how humans can get to know the past. This is the way how our history was written. This is how humans have the limited and indirect access of the past.

Now how about the future. We can have the same limited and indirect access of the future in a similar manner. God told His eyewitnesses a future and for us to get to know by putting faith in what is said. Whether it being a truth of lie is mostly unverifiable, similar to our history of the long past. You may not realize it but most part of our history is not verifiable. It is because history are mostly accounts of human testimonies. That's the Japanese can deny Nanjing massacre simply because even a large scale activity such as a massacre happened some 80 years ago can hardly be verifiable concretely.

Christianity is very similar to history. It is composed of human accounts of testimonies. The fundamental difference between such a religion and history is that, history is about the recording of human activities which we can comprehend. Religion is about the recording of activities of God, which may lie beyond our comprehension. History is absolutely about the past, while religion has an advocate about the future.

That being said, all left is if the Christianity God has a message (of His salvation) to be carried forward among humans in the timeline of humanity, then what He can do?


The proposal is as follows,

The Bible is a witnessing made of human accounts of testimonies. It doesn't need to be a supernatural account of witnessing. It is a human account of witnessing. This is so especially depending on what needs to be presented in the court of Heaven. Our law courts require us to present human testimonies about a crime case. Similarly, the court of heaven may also need human accounts of testimonies about God. The court of heaven doesn't seem to demand a testimony written by God himself. It requires the testimony written by humans to testify the deeds and words of God.

On the other hand, through this set of human testimonies, God buries a set of theology about His Law and covenants about the salvation of humans. If the salvation information is not accurate enough, to the standard specified by the heavenly court, then the judgment of Law cannot be carried out. It is similar to how testimonies are present to our courts, if what is said is not up to an accuracy acceptable by the judge and juries, the court case won't stand. This is the so-called infallibility of the Bible. That is to say, through the series of human testimonies God needs to accurately (up to the heavenly court standard) pass the information of salvation to humans, such that those who put faith in the information can thus be qualified to be saved.

[William]

[Replying to post 8 by Hawkins]

Why do you believe the bible is 'the word of GOD'?

The above is a link to a thread by that name, inviting people such as yourself to explain why they believe this to be the case.

[polonius]

Hawkins posted:

The proposal is as follows,

The Bible is a witnessing made of human accounts of testimonies. It doesn't need to be a supernatural account of witnessing. It is a human account of witnessing. This is so especially depending on what needs to be presented in the court of Heaven. Our law courts require us to present human testimonies about a crime case. Similarly, the court of heaven may also need human accounts of testimonies about God. The court of heaven doesn't seem to demand a testimony written by God himself. It requires the testimony written by humans to testify the deeds and words of God.

On the other hand, through this set of human testimonies, God buries a set of theology about His Law and covenants about the salvation of humans. If the salvation information is not accurate enough, to the standard specified by the heavenly court, then the judgment of Law cannot be carried out. It is similar to how testimonies are present to our courts, if what is said is not up to an accuracy acceptable by the judge and juries, the court case won't stand. This is the so-called infallibility of the Bible. That is to say, through the series of human testimonies God needs to accurately (up to the heavenly court standard) pass the information of salvation to humans, such that those who put faith in the information can thus be qualified to be saved.

RESPONSE
https://ldsscriptureteachings.org/2017/ ... narrative/
“The Mesopotamian work known as the Sargon Birth Legend offers the most striking parallels to the Exodus account of Moses’ birth. It relates the birth story of Sargon the Great, an Akkadian emperor who ruled a number of Sumerian city-states around 2300 BCE, around 800 years before Moses. The infant boy is born into great peril: His mother is a high priestess, and he is illegitimate. As a result of these circumstances, his mother decides to place him on a river in a reed basket. The boy is rescued and raised by a gardener named Akki. He lives as a modest gardener in Akki’s service until the goddess Ishtar takes an interest in him, and puts him on a path to kingship.�
http://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/
“The Epic of Gilgamesh is contained on twelve large tablets, and since the original discovery, it has been found on others, as well as having been translated into other early languages.7 The actual tablets date back to around 650 B.C. and are obviously not originals since fragments of the flood story have been found on tablets dated around 2,000 B.C.8 Linguistic experts believe that the story was composed well before 2,000 B.C. compiled from material that was much older than that date.9 The Sumerian cuneiform writing has been estimated to go as far back as 3,300 B.C. “

http://www.usccb.org/bible/exodus/0
“These events made Israel a nation and confirmed their unique relationship with God. The “law� (Hebrew torah) given by God through Moses to the Israelites at Mount Sinai constitutes the moral, civil, and ritual legislation by which they were to become a holy people. Many elements of it were fundamental to the teaching of Jesus (Mt 5:21–30; 15:4) as well as to New Testament and Christian moral teaching (Rom 13:8–10; 1 Cor 10:1–5; 1 Pt 2:9).�
NRSV Exodus chapter 12
40� The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years. 41 At the end of four hundred thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.� (Note: No archeological evidence has ever been found. No records by the Egyptians or Hebrews, no graves, not even a broken piece of pottery)�,

“The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children�. (Note. Counting wives, women, and children, the number would have been greater that 2 million Hebrews or about 25% of the total population of Egypt at that time).
Note: If we count the wives and children, the number swells to over 2 million or about 25% of the population at that time.

COMMENT: I think this goes far beyond accidental alterations of the story. In short,
it is just a cumulative pious yarn. Not a description of what really happened.