What does inerrancy mean?

[Difflugia]

Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses share a doctrine known as "soul sleep," such that the dead lose awareness upon death and remain unaware until the resurrection. One corollary to this is that there is no such thing as a ghost in the sense of the sentient spirit of a dead person. A glaring biblical contradiction to this doctrinal view is 1 Samuel 28, where a medium successfully summons the spirit of the late prophet Samuel to speak with Saul.

The attempted harmonization of this contradiction is the assertion that the summoned entity is actually a demon rather than the spirit of Samuel. The claim is that the biblical narrator is writing from the point of view of the medium, who is mistaken. At the same time, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses also share the doctrine that the Bible is inerrant.

What practical limitations does this understanding of inerrancy place on interpretation of the text? Is this understanding compatible with other Christian definitions of inerrancy, like The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?

[Difflugia]

This is such an important doctrine to Jehovah's Witnesses that their official Bible translation changes the sense of this chapter by putting scare quotes around Samuel's name:



They justify this with a footnote:



In case it isn't obvious, the footnote is simply asserted and has no actual textual support. If one can legitimately assert that the biblical narrator can take on the role of an unreliable narrator in a literary sense, what does inerrancy even mean?

[Difflugia]

In case anyone's interested in the details of the doctrinal harmonization, an SDA ministry called "Amazing Facts" has a short Bible Study specifically about why the ghost of Samuel wasn't really the ghost of Samuel. It can be downloaded as a PDF.

I tried the search engine in the Watchtower Library and found a number of times this doctrine is asserted in various Watch Tower publications, but no justification for it.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #1

It's obvious that they didn't get the quotation marks or any equivalent from the Hebrew since the biblical Hebrew doesn't have punctuation.


Another question concerning presumed inerrancy would be between 1 Samuel 28:6, which says of Saul:

"He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets."

.....and 1 Chronicles 10:14, which tells that Saul died because he consulted the witch.....

"and did not inquire of the Lord."

[TRANSPONDER]

Punctuations is the devils' work.

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #1

It's obvious that they didn't get the quotation marks or any equivalent from the Hebrew since the biblical Hebrew doesn't have punctuation.


Another question concerning presumed inerrancy would be between 1 Samuel 28:6, which says of Saul:

"He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets."

.....and 1 Chronicles 10:14, which tells that Saul died because he consulted the witch.....

"and did not inquire of the Lord."

So Saul owned the same Urim that Joseph Smith used translating the BoM from the ancient language Reformed Egyptian.

But it might have helped Saul if he would have tried using a Thummim also.

Punctuations is the devils' work.

In Doctrine & Covenants Josep Smith writes that a revelation says that the Catholic church was founded by the Devil.

So that must be the reason for the Catholic church using punctuation in their writings.

[TRANSPONDER]

Nobody is more errant than Joseph Smith in his Book of Abraham, proven not top be a translation of old Egyptian or anything else, and I only ever saw it excused as a god - given scripture with a delusion of translating an Ehyptian funerary text as a sorta connection, which is of course an excuse for a believer to dismiss the evidence and cling to Faith but hard and solid reason to dismiss the pearl of great p[rice, Smith and all Mormon writings and claims.

Which still leaves us with the other religions, (which Christianity dismissed without question). Now I've been pondering what may seem like a quick quip, but the basic is, all the religions look like product of their cultures, and changing as their cultures change. and thus the writings alter as the cultures alter.

I find is a bit funny and sad that Some kinds of Christian apologists wag their virtue -signals as they put back scripture into Aramaic to accurately record what Jesus said.

For me, it was written in Greek from the start and Jesus never said any of it. So it's down, bagged and tagged from start, never mind whether Latin has any claim to be the correct Liturgical language, and wars fought over whether it should be translated into languages people could read.
The Popes needn't have panicked, nobody today seems to know what is in their Bibles, whatever translation they are in.

[Mae von H]

Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses share a doctrine known as "soul sleep," such that the dead lose awareness upon death and remain unaware until the resurrection. One corollary to this is that there is no such thing as a ghost in the sense of the sentient spirit of a dead person. A glaring biblical contradiction to this doctrinal view is 1 Samuel 28, where a medium successfully summons the spirit of the late prophet Samuel to speak with Saul.

The attempted harmonization of this contradiction is the assertion that the summoned entity is actually a demon rather than the spirit of Samuel. The claim is that the biblical narrator is writing from the point of view of the medium, who is mistaken. At the same time, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses also share the doctrine that the Bible is inerrant.

What practical limitations does this understanding of inerrancy place on interpretation of the text? Is this understanding compatible with other Christian definitions of inerrancy, like The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?

Why is the teaching of JWs and Adventists the gold standard and verses dismantling their theology a “discrepancy” in scripture? Why not question the theology instead of the Bible?

[TRANSPONDER]

Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses share a doctrine known as "soul sleep," such that the dead lose awareness upon death and remain unaware until the resurrection. One corollary to this is that there is no such thing as a ghost in the sense of the sentient spirit of a dead person. A glaring biblical contradiction to this doctrinal view is 1 Samuel 28, where a medium successfully summons the spirit of the late prophet Samuel to speak with Saul.

The attempted harmonization of this contradiction is the assertion that the summoned entity is actually a demon rather than the spirit of Samuel. The claim is that the biblical narrator is writing from the point of view of the medium, who is mistaken. At the same time, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses also share the doctrine that the Bible is inerrant.

What practical limitations does this understanding of inerrancy place on interpretation of the text? Is this understanding compatible with other Christian definitions of inerrancy, like The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?

Why is the teaching of JWs and Adventists the gold standard and verses dismantling their theology a “discrepancy” in scripture? Why not question the theology instead of the Bible?

One apologetic that may pop up is 'That isn't my bel;ief'. I ran up against it talking about Judgement and eternal life in heaven and got 'We don't believe in heaven for people, but eternal life on earth for the Righteous'.

So in a sense we have to latch on the apologetics of this or that discrepant sect and debate on that. Mind, it is mainstream protestant doctrines that we have in mind as a basic when we debate because that's what we generally get in the US.

[Mae von H]

Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses share a doctrine known as "soul sleep," such that the dead lose awareness upon death and remain unaware until the resurrection. One corollary to this is that there is no such thing as a ghost in the sense of the sentient spirit of a dead person. A glaring biblical contradiction to this doctrinal view is 1 Samuel 28, where a medium successfully summons the spirit of the late prophet Samuel to speak with Saul.

The attempted harmonization of this contradiction is the assertion that the summoned entity is actually a demon rather than the spirit of Samuel. The claim is that the biblical narrator is writing from the point of view of the medium, who is mistaken. At the same time, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses also share the doctrine that the Bible is inerrant.

What practical limitations does this understanding of inerrancy place on interpretation of the text? Is this understanding compatible with other Christian definitions of inerrancy, like The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?

Why is the teaching of JWs and Adventists the gold standard and verses dismantling their theology a “discrepancy” in scripture? Why not question the theology instead of the Bible?

One apologetic that may pop up is 'That isn't my bel;ief'. I ran up against it talking about Judgement and eternal life in heaven and got 'We don't believe in heaven for people, but eternal life on earth for the Righteous'.

So in a sense we have to latch on the apologetics of this or that discrepant sect and debate on that. Mind, it is mainstream protestant doctrines that we have in mind as a basic when we debate because that's what we generally get in the US.

OK, so I can see the validity of accepting the beliefs of the JWs, etc (called a false "cult" by mainstream christianity) as they know it to be and working from there for the sake of discussion. It is a point for christians that their position is so deviant from scripture that one can see that quite easily, but that is not a part of the discussion. You make a valid point.