soul searcher

Yep, I was just throwing that out there.

I'm sure you guys know that this concept of inerrancy is hardly unique to TWI, Weirwille or even Bullinger. My (Catholic-oriented) NAB translation contains a long discussion on the "Origin, Inspiration and History of the Bible". Among other things, it says that "sacred scripture" is inerrant and divinely inspired and translated (I suppose they're referring to the Latin Vulgate). It also claims that "Protestants themselves recognized many serious defects in the King James translation". Interestingly, it contains 72 books, including six apocryphal books of the OT. As you might suspect, the Vatican believes that the canonization process was divinely inspired as well. Just FYI, there are a few discussions of inerrancy on bible.org. (No one there talks, or even seems to know anything about TWI.)

Oh, only liberals do that?

Why wouldn't Jesus reference a folk tale? He might have been trying to illustrate a point in terms they understood. I haven't read Jonah yet but, personally, I don't think he could have lived inside a fish for three days, although I'm sure he was a fine prohet. The hydrochloric acid in any vertebrate species' digestive system is strong enough to inflict burns on most other tissues of the body. That's why the stomach has a lining. Sorry to get so technical. I'm just sayin'... Or maybe Jonah did live inside a whale for three days, what do I know? :) @ Jeff: nice post.

True confessions: I fell totally, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with a Way person. Her religious beliefs and the fact that she had been in a cult were totally irrelevant to me. And, if our life situations were ever to allow it, I would most certainly marry her.

Interesting point. I'll have to think about that. Incidentally (and off-topic) I'm listening to a segment of a CFFM class called "Being About Our Father's Business" where they say that God designed us in such a way that "we would search for a reason for the creation and find Him." I don't think I agree with that. Many people choose not to wonder about things.

Don't we? Everyday we make choices. And we have the freedom to sin or not sin as we please.

The image I had in my head of all of you (ex)TWIers as clean-living, born-again Christians is totally blown. :) My ex-Way friend told me that the last time she smoked pot was with me 26 years ago, just before she went WoW and disappeared from my life. The next time she smoked was after we reconnected about a year ago. Don't ask me why.

Thanks, waysider. That was a very interesting discussion. My mind started to go in all directions, but a few ideas are taking shape...call these my working hypotheses: 1. I don't think God has foreknowledge of all events. To say He does negates the concept of free will. Didn't God get angry at Israel on various occasions for disobeying His will? So I'm thinking...if I knew with 100% certainty that something was going to happen, why wouldn't I spare myself the hassle of getting angry about it when it actually does? God couldn't have known that Israel would disobey Him or He could have spared Himself the trouble of having to punish them. 2. Anyone can say that anything was pre-destined. And it's difficult to refute such claims, isn't it? 3. So far, I see no evidence in scripture that Paul was "predestined" to be called as an apostle of Jesus, apart from his own assertion.

Okay, so I went back to Ephesians and in chapter 1 Paul says that God "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (verse 3, NIV). He "chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ."(4-5). And then "11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will..." I'm confused about the use of the lower case male personal pronouns above. Is Paul saying that Jesus (not God) predestined all of them to be adopted as his disciples "before the creation of the world"? Did Jesus prophesy somewhere about Paul's birth? The general concept of "predestination" is very troubling to me, and highly questionable. Does predestination mean that something is planned or that something will definitely happen? If we are creatures of free will, and if God does not control our thoughts and actions, then any of us, intentionally or not, are theoretically capable of messing His plans. Of what significance is it to say that something is predestined if any fool can "unpredestine" it? I think that as far the New Testament goes, the birth of Jesus was obviously predestined -- and foretold. Who else? Well, Luke said that the birth of John the Baptist was foretold (Luke 1:13), but so far I don't remember anybody but Paul claiming that Paul's birth was foretold. Either Paul's birth was predestined and nobody "foretold" anybody, or Paul is making an unsubstantiated claim. Maybe somebody can clear this up for me.

Another question about Paul... In Galatians 1:15 (NIV) he writes that God, "set me apart from birth and called me by his grace." Huh? I thought his conversion came about in Acts 9:1 when he was on the road to Damascus to persecute more of God's disciples "who belonged to the Way" (no pun intended, that's verbatim from verse 2 in the NIV). If Paul was destined from birth to be an apostle of Jesus Christ then why did God allow him to stand by and approve the stoning of Stephen, one of God's disciples, "guarding the clothes of those who were killing him." (Acts 22:20)? How did Paul arrive at the conclusion that he was chosen from birth? I can't find anywhere in scripture where the Lord ever told him that. (One could argue that his conversion was a "new birth", but the trouble with that argument is that the term "from birth" here means "from my mother's womb".)

Hey, Shellon, great post. It seems to me that God does not control our everyday thoughts and actions -- we have free will and can think and do as we please. Although there are lots of things in my life that I have attributed to God's grace and which I'm thankful for, I also believe in random events and dumb luck. As humans, we have the freedom to walk as we please. So I don't blame Satan when things go wrong for me.

How do you do that link thingy, like you did with the word pollard? I could never figure that out.

Getting back to the OP... I was never sold on the inerrancy thing to begin with. But, if we were to discount all of the Pauline epistles as the writings of a "con-man", we would still have, NT-wise, the four gospels, the Book of Acts, Hebrews (I think), and Revelation. Yeah...it would be a much smaller book, I suppose.

Nice post, irisheyes. WRT below... Judging from Jesus' words, a "neighbor" isn't just anybody (i.e. the guy next door), but somebody who helps another, someone with good intentions. I found this teaching to be quite sobering. My selfish motto nowadays is something along the lines of, "No good deed goes unpunished." lol (just kidding...I try, I try.)

I really don't see Paul's character or background as being sanitized. We know that he approved the stoning of Stephen and stood by as it happened. We also know that he "began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison" (Acts 8:3). And right up until his conversion he was "still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples" (Acts 9:1). You can't really sanitize that can you? It would seem that the only way to be redeemeded of that reputation is to get a pass from The Man Himslef. JMHO

I'm interested in the canonization process. I don't know too much about it but... ...wouldn't the set of books that ultimately comprised the canon of the Christian bible reflect the theology of those who put it together? (i.e., King James and the people he commissioned) @Sunesis: great post.

Nice that you have a sense of humor, geisha!

Acutally (and please correct me if I'm wrong), it only adds up to over 500 people if you take into account 1 Corinthians 15:6 ("After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time...) I don't believe that any of the four synoptic gospels mention "hundreds" who saw the resurrected Jesus. So then it seems that Jesus appeared to over 500, but only according to Paul ("thus saith Paul" ha-ha!) Anyway, it's not important. I didn't bring this up to take sides with anyone. Carry on!

Miller High Life delivery guy...three commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYeyZ0GtFQg

It's not really funny at all, but in terms of sheer entertainment value the story of Samson and Delilah in Judges 16 -- indeed the entire account of Samson's life -- ranks right up there. When Samson saw a woman he liked he said to his parents, "now get her for me as my wife". Get her for me. LOL I love that. (Yeah, I realize that they had certain customs back in the day...yadda yadda. It's still funny.) So the first wife double-crosses him in no time flat. Then Samson hooks up with Delilah, who is maybe the most vile and despicable woman in the bible, and she proceeds to F him over twice, but ol' Sam (God love him) wasn't too quick on the uptake. He still didn't realize he was married to an evil woman, and finally ended up telling her the secret of his strength, upon which she promptly betrayed him. I mean, Samson didn't know too much about women, did he? But anyway, I love the way he took his revenge: blind and enslaved by the Philistines, he grew back his hair, regained his strength, and took the temple down after they humiliated him, killing everybody in it. Great story.

I agree. Dreams can be prophetic, but they can also be wrong. Sometimes, as Solomon Burke has soulfully reminded us, a dream is "only a dream." WRT to SIT...my ignorant and uneducated reading of the Book of Acts tells me that the apostles spoke various established languages during Pentecost, not uninterpretable or unintelligible utterances. (Note that I did not say that there was no spiritual or psychological benefit to speaking uninterpretable or unintelligible utterances. I think there can be when done correctly.) After several months of reading the bible sometimes I ask that question myself. However, I continue because I do enjoy reading the bible for the sheer enjoyment, and I intend to finish it from cover to cover. I have to say, too, that the experience has been pretty exciting. I had no formal ties to any church, religion, or faith other than my standard Catholic upbringing. That means that I have nobody standing over my shoulder telling me what this and that is supposed to mean. While I did initially approach the whole bible study thing with a "Way mentality" (having been introduced to the bible by my ex-Way friend), I've since broken free of it and so I'm on my own. But there is incredible freedom in making my own private interpretations. Also, the internet and computerized bible study tools have made it so easy to look up various translations and interpretations instantly. It's actually fun. (My God, who knew that I'd ever be reading the bible and saying it's fun?) :)

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. (Romans 12:6) BTW, regardless of what the bible says, I consider musical talent to be a gift (yes from God). And, since it is a gift from God, then the execution and perception by others of that talent is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The same goes for great singers, writers, artists, etc. More than one musician has said that a particular compostion or peformance was divinely inspired. Kind of off-topic here, but I was watching Bill Maher rag on religion last night on HBO (he's not kind to religion), and he was riffing on the Jesus is God/Son of God thing. I have to admit it was pretty funny.

Hee-hee! Dust porn. :) Sorry, Roy. I couldn't resist. Anyway, not to hijack the thread, but as long as we're on the topic: I never knew there was so much sex (and violence) in the bible until I started reading it.

I just happened to be reading this today... 1 Corinthians 3 3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men? . . . 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; 20and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."