Did God Allow Transmission Errors?

[JoeMama]

Did God know there would be transcription errors in the transmission of the "perfect autographs," but nevertheless choose not to prevent them?

[TRANSPONDER]

A long discussed aspect of Inerrancy vs inspiration There are two ways out - to deny errancies (either there are none, or there are but can be explained) or accepting errors but blaming them on the men who wrote it.

Two ways out there, too the metaphorical one, 'Inspiration' means it doesn't have to be true but tells us in poetic and metaphorical tales about the Truths (God and Jesus are real) . The other is something along the same lines as 'God had to allow people to go wrong'. Neither are satisfactory as other books tell us about the human condition and we need no particular religion as excess baggage, the other is a miserable excuse for why the God that 'inspired' this book allowed it to be full of rubbish and nonsense.

The simplest explanation that explains the facts is of course 'it would look just like that if there was no god there'. Which is the hypothesis that we find looking at us at the end of every religious discussion.

cue: 'that may be your opinion; I have a different one'. Of course, but it is not about the faithbased denial of the Believer in the face of a compelling case - it is about the merits of the case. It is almost always (as it almost always is ) a discussion that starts off with obvious and undeniable evidence for the truth of the Bible and ending with 'Well I have my own opinion', or the like (1), which is all to do with Faith and nothing to do with evidence.

Like I have said for some decades the debate is done, the Method is better understood than it was (atheist apologists still get tripped up by the crafty methods), and it is the thinking behind religious apologetics that is the matter that requires more attention and understanding.

(1) I have proposed or formulatesd Theist apologetics of the three kinds:
(a) argue on the evidence
(b) fiddle the evidence, logic, reason, epistemology, science, philosophy and even what the Bible says to try to make the evidence fit the faith.
(c) or 'apologetics of the Third Kind' - sauce. That is denial, needling, extreme evasion, dirty tricks like start a row and the Parthian Shot':(running away shouting "I win", and i need hardly jog memories here about a poster whose sig was about atheist denial and fleeing in the face of being beaten when he was the one that went into denial and vanished when being beaten. orthe Deep Dive, - vanishing for a month and resurfacing with the same arguments. What the idea is there, but it happens.

But the ploy I rather like is 'agree to differ', or as I call it in my Atheist Axioms, 'to the theist apologist a draw is a win'. Yes, because while a compromise can be made to sound Reasonable, it is a swindle and cheat. It allows the Theist apologist to claim 'My opinion is as valid as yours' when it is not if the evidence has not stood up to scrutiny. This is the less obnoxious of the parting ploys of the Third Kind but is perniciously insidious and we should always be aware of it.

Where facts (1) are concerned, compromise is NOT the best option,e. g "when there is disagreement about whether the sun sets in the east or the west, the answer is not 'Well - let's agree it sets in the middle'. Lawyer tricks and the scams of the religious sophist should not be given a pass."

(1) an often misunderstood or misrepresented idea. It means what is so in reality never mind what humans think about it (which is also an argument against brain in a vat) It is NOT what the textbooks say, though of course they try to present the closest model to reality that we have, based on the evidence.

[Miles]

Did God know there would be transcription errors in the transmission of the "perfect autographs," but nevertheless choose not to prevent them?

Don't know about not choosing to prevent them, but having made mistakes before, even self admitted mistakes, it's no less possible that god made the mistake of letting transcription errors go uncorrected. OR, just as possible, he simply misspoke. After all, nobody's perfect.


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[1213]

Did God know there would be transcription errors in the transmission of the "perfect autographs," but nevertheless choose not to prevent them?

Please show one example of an error?

[TRANSPONDER]

Did God know there would be transcription errors in the transmission of the "perfect autographs," but nevertheless choose not to prevent them?

Please show one example of an error?

Thank you. That is an thing to be clarified. It is a case of errors in the Bible. Factual, contradictions, additions and mistranslations. Aside denial that there are any such the question of Transmission of such errors arises, or permission of such errors. Transmission is obvious, or in some cases, not.

Unless one goes to a degree of science denial that would make a Flat earthists gape with horror, one must accept that causing the sun to stand still is an obvious factual error. A less obvious one is the sun created after there was daylight. We have seen the apologetic that of course the sun was made and the daylight depends upon it and it only Looked like it was made later because of cloud cover. But then that is only how it would look from earth and nobody was yet there to see it. So God must have told (transmission) Moses about it. Why would God give wrong information? The answer is that He didn't. That passage was written by men who didn't know any better. That sorta makes a clean hands (not) problem for the credibility of all of Genesis, and also Exodus which has its' own problems.

Contradictions is another error such as (obvious, though missed for 2,000 years by the Bible experts) Joseph and Mary lived in Galilee and had to go to Bethlehem (in Judea, Luke says) because of this Roman tax, which didn't apply to Galilee (still under Herodian rule) anyway. But Matthew makes it clear that Joseph lived in Bethlehem all the time and intended to go back there and he had to find a place to live in Galilee to avoid Herod's son. This is just one of many contradictions that make the Nativities the touchstone case for contradiction, the resurrections running a close second. How could God transmit such errors? Or were they human errors that God permitted? How could He possibly allow that? Again can we be blamed for going with the evidence "It was written by two writers separately, unaware how they were contradicting each other"?

As to additions, Luke is the man for that, and the Big Three here are the rejection at Nazareth where the 'carpenter's son' passage found in Matthew and Luke is turned into a major revelation of messiahship and an attempted murder and apparently shifted to the start of the mission from later on (though that's arguable). Another is the penitent thief which is clearly refuted by Mark and Matthew who have both robbers revile Jesus and how, credibly, could both of them passed over the penitent thief episode? Luke added it. He must have. Why would God have transmitted that to one writer but not all? Or why would He have allowed that to happen to his Book? Again, the evidence argues it was the work of one man adding amended material and altering as suited him and God is nothing to do with it.

And translations. We already knew of Matthew's Virgin Birth and the two donkeys. I have never heard elsewhere of two I rather like - Matthew's 'Babes and sucklings' is also a mistranslation from Psalms and really Jesus could not have said it. And the prophecies of Judas' death in Matthew and Acts. When you track down the OT originals, they are not only mistranslated but made up of odd bits. The evidence must be better explained as the writers starting with the event and then searching to OT for a suitable prophecy. Which explain how half the prophecies were made up after the event.

Again, God had nothing to do with that. Transmission of the Book from God is not credible, and 'inspiration' really becomes indistinguishable from 'their own ideas', with rubbish like that. Which are just examples I most like from a book full of such errors.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to 1213 in post #4]

Not all translations show the apparent transmission error below. God could have prevented such an error, if he wanted:

According to 2 Kings 8:26, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and reigned for one year in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 22:2 gives his age as 42 years when his reign began in Jerusalem.

[Miles]

Did God know there would be transcription errors in the transmission of the "perfect autographs," but nevertheless choose not to prevent them?

Please show one example of an error?

Don't know when the following variations in transcription occurred, but they certainly stand as errors.

Philippians 3:8
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Of the 55 Bible versions I checked, "dung" appears 11 times as a translation of σκύβαλον in the verse, and

"refuse" 4 times
"garbage" 10 times
"rubbish" 13 times
"filth" 2 times
"trash" 6 times
"worthless" 2 times
"less than nothing" 3 times
"manure" 1 time
"waste" 1 time
"dirt" 1 time
"sewer trash" 1 time.

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[JoeMama]

[Replying to Miles in post #7]

I'm confused, Miles.
I don't see errors in your listing of the many different words the authors used to convey the same meaning--valueless, inconsequential.
Do I misunderstand your intent?

[Miles]

[Replying to Miles in post #7]

I'm confused, Miles.
I don't see errors in your listing of the many different words the authors used to convey the same meaning--valueless, inconsequential.
Do I misunderstand your intent?

If god's intention was to convey the meaning of σκύβαλον, or whatever word god used, as "dung "

dung
noun
noun: dung; plural noun: dungs
the excrement of animals; manure.

do you think it was correct to use "refuse," "garbage," "rubbish," "trash," "less than nothing," "dirt," and "sewer trash" as a synonym?

I don't. Why? because:

"refuse" does not convey the meaning of dung
"garbage" does not convey the meaning of dung
"rubbish" does not convey the meaning of dung
"filth" does not convey the meaning of dung
"trash" does not convey the meaning of dung
"worthless" does not convey the meaning of dung
"less than nothing" does not convey the meaning of dung
"dirt" does not convey the meaning of dung
"sewer trash" does not convey the meaning of dung

In fact, I see such transmissions as errors. Somewhere along the line they were erroneously used in place of "dung."


AND you can't simply pick a meaning such as "valueless, inconsequential" out of the blue and say this is what god meant, because, for one thing, not all the alternative terms convey such a meaning. For instance, refuse is not necessarily "valueless, inconsequential" at all

"Refuse" refers to any disposable materials, which includes both recyclable and non-Recyclable Materials."
source

Nor is dirt necessarily "valueless, inconsequential." In fact, dirt can be quite valuable. Just price a bag of it at Home Depot. And consequential to one's garden and lawn, or for filling holes, leveling off embankments, and raising areas in the ground.



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[JoeMama]

[Replying to Miles in post #9]

All of the words you listed contain, in varying degrees, the same meaning within the context provided: Those things that otherwise are of even great value to the person, become valueless when compared to the gain coming from salvation.

I think we've both had ample chance to make our point, so if you don't mind, I would like to move on.