Thanks for the reference, Mark! But my neuron-pathways were set up in the days of slide rules, manual typewriters and party lines. I was a teenager when the first transistor radios started coming over from Japan. I remember the days when vacuum tubes ruled the earth! I've been haunting the stacks at the Nicholson Library for decades, even when I wasn't taking classes at AU, and I love the smell of pulp. Besides, walking to and from the library counts as physical therapy for me. Treadmills bore me senseless!
Here is the work I did on John 6:63,
to pneuma estin to zoopoioun, he sarx ouk ophelei ouden: ta rhemata a ego lelaleka humin pneuma estin kai zoe estin.
Literal translation: the spirit is the one who is making alive, the flesh not helps not even: the sayings that I am speaking to you spirit is and life is.
Sense translation: The Spirit is the one who is making alive, the flesh does NOT help, not in any way: the sayings that I AM SPEAKING to you are spirit and are life.
Zoopoioun is a participle that I think is best translated by the phrase I've given. The double negative of ouk and ouden emphasizes the fact that the flesh does NOT help. Inclusion of the word ego puts extra-special emphasis on the "I" and the perfect tense of lelaleka puts emphasis on "I am speaking." The inclusion of the verb estin for both spirit and life points out the fact that they are being regarded here as two different ways of looking at the same phenomenon. They can't be translated as "spiritual life" or lively spirit". The subject of the last clause is plural, but the verbs used with spirit and life are singular. It might be possible to translate the last clause as "the sayings that I am speaking to you is one spirit and is one life, but in my opinion that would be overplaying the shift in number, and it doesn't make good English.
Things are moving slowly, what with my anemia and the end of the semester. Our semester final in Hebrew is Monday morning.
But they are moving. Here is the text of a letter I just sent a short time ago.
Dear Dr. Hawkins,
Dr. Lozano informs me that he will be teaching a class on hermeneutics for doctoral students in January. I asked Dr. Lozano if I could audit the class, and he told me I would need to seek permission from you.
I became interested in hermeneutics about ten years before I got into studying the Bible. I was engaged in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power Program. We had two volumes that were to govern all of our activities, the Reactor Plant Control Manual and the Engineering Department Operating Procedures. Both books were several hundred pages long. Our watchwords were "verbatim compliance with posted procedures." That was one of the keys to the Navy's long record of safe reactor operations. We became intensely interested in the meanings that words convey, and their practical application. Our lives literally depended on it. Whenever we were involved in a potential loss of plant control, we had to be able to go before a board of officers and orally argue the justification of our decisions and actions from the texts of the operating manuals.
When I became attracted to actually researching the Bible, it struck me that it has much more integrity of meaning at multiple levels than any of our manuals ever had, but I knew that even our manuals necessarily contained what some people might consider contradictions and errors. A question that has been exercising me for some time has been how to counter the cognitive distortion of fundamentalist/evangelical protestant theology which says that the whole Bible falls apart, becoming nothing more than a tissue of lies, if we find even one contradiction or error in it. I don't think being "God-breathed" means what the fundamentalists/evangelicals think it means.
Since my recent bouts with pneumonia, I have been thinking in very concrete and personal terms about the relation between spirit and life as purposefully regulated flows of constituent elements. I've been thinking about John 6:63 where Jesus said "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." This makes me wonder about how thought, words spoken, can also be viewed as purposefully regulated flows of constituent elements. What are those elements? Images associated with symbols? Abstract ideas? How are the flows of those things regulated? Passages of scripture such as Proverbs 4:20-23 and Romans 12:2 lead me to think that the Bible has much to say on the subject.
I also intend to read Ferdinand de Saussure's "Course in General Linguistics" over the Christmas break to prepare for the class.
If it would be acceptable with you for me to attend Dr. Lozano's class on hermeneutics (I am not seeking any formal credit for attending), then I would appreciate it very much if you would let Dr. Lozano and myself know so.
Dr. Hawkins gave me permission to attend the class. I've started reading de Saussure's course. What I've learned so far is that de Saussure views language as a social construct that engages both the associative and the imaginative faculties in the minds of those who participate. The questions that exercise me are "what is it that flows?" and "how is that flow purposefully regulated?"
Thinking about John 6:63 where Jesus said, "The sayings I am speaking to you are spirit and are life." How can sayings be spirit and life?
If we recognize the factor common to both spirit and life, that they each consist of purposefully regulated flows of constituent elements, then we need to examine "sayings" as purposely regulated flows of constituent elements. What are those elements? How do they flow? How is that flow regulated? To what purposes?
It seems to me that "language" is the best word for an overall descriptor of what I'm thinking about. It seems that language is not a simple, but rather a complex set of flows occurring simultaneously on multiple levels. At the most basic level (above the individual cell) we have the flow of electrical charges along neuron pathways. At the highest level we have the flow of "meanings" or "understandings". Language is primarily a social phenomenon, that is, for full communication to take place, there needs to be a loop between a sender and a receiver that allows for feedback.
Among the things a brain needs to be able to do in order for language to exist are:
1. To register sensations
2. To remember sensations
3. To imagine, that is, to be able to hold the image of a thing not present
4. To associate, that is, to form and remember links such that one image evokes another image.
Learning a language is a social thing that a child does from an early age by observing and imitating the people around it. The child learns to associate abstract sounds with the images of particular items, then learns to generalize the sound to other, similar items. The child learns to form the sounds herself, and looks to feedback from her examples to improve, and come up to the standard.
I cut my hermeneutical teeth, not on the Bible, but on the Reactor Plant Control Manual and the Engineering Department Operating Procedures. Both were volumes a couple of inches thick, and we were expected to operate the plant "in verbatim compliance with posted procedure". An "incident" was defined as any occurrence that involved a potential loss of plant control. Whenever there was an incident, there would be an incident review, in which a board of officers would interview every person involved in the incident, and examine their decisions and actions in light of the operating procedures. The cause of the incident would be discovered, and action would be taken to see that the incident would not be repeated. A report of the incident review would be forwarded to Naval Reactors. Every month, a series of formal procedural changes would be sent from Naval Reactors to each Engineering Department to update the procedures based on experience, and to keep the procedures uniform throughout the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet.
The procedures constantly required interpretation, which meant discovering the concrete meaning of what had been written and applying that meaning in specific situations. And we had to be able to argue those interpretations with serious consequences at stake.
There have been times in my life when I have earned my living by doing technical writing, that is, writing product descriptions, installation instructions and operating procedures. Customer safety and satisfaction depended on how well I wrote.
I never made a living at it, but I have had several games published, and I've contributed to several others. The rules systems for games are simply procedures for having imaginary fun. But there are people we used to call "rules lawyers" who can spoil the fun by using the technicalities of the system to negate the spirit of the game (huh!?! games can have a "spirit"? and I don't mean TWI's "debbil spurts").
Have you every written procedures, Raf? Have you ever tried to devise a "fool-proof" procedure? If so, I'd like to know what philosophy you used when you were writing them. Thanks!
The Bible never says that it is without error or contradiction.
Then I suppose you might take John 10:35 to mean something else when it says "scripture cannot be broken."
An interpretation of Duet. 18:22 might also be needed.
But, perhaps you want (or are making) a distinction between "the Bible" and scripture.
Okay, so the Bible (as we have it) is what has been canonized (or, endorsed as being scripture.)
Perhaps the real thing being discussed here is whether "all scripture" is inspired (or "God-breathed"), and not whether all scripture is or isn't included in the Bible.
Care to clarify and/or explain?
In short, there is no way, Biblically, to determine that something is God-breathed, and no way, Biblically, to determine that it isn't. The best we can do is determine that sthe Bible meets some definition of God-breathed. It doesn't meet Wierwille's by a longshot.
What part of living in this world doesn't involve a premise of some sort?
Somebody here will likely take a position against man having (or making) a choice (I'll steer clear of referring to it as "free will"), but that's another issue. But I see no problem in acknowledging that there were no errors in the original inspired writings, and considering/studying/working (whatever you prefer) the scriptures from that vantage point.
Logic can serve to build tremendous theological systems. But if the premise is faulty (or incorrect), then... well, you know the rest.
Whether one accepts that premise that all scripture in inspired of God (and without error) significantly changes what is results in his (or her) mind.
Personally, I chose which premise to adhere to a long time ago (well before VPW and TWI). Sure doesn't mean that I have always built right, or that I haven't had to (a number of times) dig deep and rip out significant chunks of ideological error. However, it has always been the bedrock that I've been tethered to. And (surprisingly enough) more answers have come to light for me in recent years, not from the Greek (or Hebrew or Aramaic or any other "in depth" research into the early manuscripts), but simply by changing certain perspectives on what (and why) things are written where and as they are in the Bible, primarily using the KJV. The difference such a relatively small change can make is, well... for lack of a better word, astounding.
John 10:35 is not talking about the gospels, itself, Acts, the Epistles or Revelation. I'll check the other verse at a later time, at which point I will be gleefully happy to address the remainder of your post.
Wierwille asked "why division," answering that it's because of a wrong dividing of The Word. But that's not the case at all. We have division in the church precisely because the doctrine of inerrancy, the refusal to admit these gospels and letters and histories contradict each other worse than the DC Multiverse (yes, I'm exaggerating). Inerrancy breeds inflexibility. If the Bible is always right, and it says what I think it does here, then I'm right, no matter what you think it says somewhere else.
Well, seems I disagree. Division certainly can be because of a wrong dividing of the Word, and I don't know why you think it wouldn't. Neither do I see why you might think that an acceptance of some doctrine of errancy (if there be such a thing) would eliminate (or even alleviate) any division. (Not that you said that, but it's alluded to.) While inerrancy may indeed breed an attitude of inflexibility, neither should it (nor does it always) demand an immediate answer or solution to every apparent discrepancy... meaning that certain things might be subject to ongoing evaluation and possible change. If that's not flexible, then perhaps I don't understand your use of the word "inflexibility."
Without inerrancy, we can say, "hey, Paul seems to disagree with James. Fascinating. What can we learn from each of them?" WITH inerrancy, we can't stand the thought of Paul disagreeing with James, so we force them to agree with each other. (Yes, I recognize the irony of ME using this example. What can I say? Time has passed). And if I'm right, then YOU ARE WRONG. GET OUT OF MY CHURCH BEFORE YOU POISON EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING WITH YOUR HERESY.
I lose my claim to be right if you can be right too.
Anyway, that's my thought on Protestant Christianity's vested interest in the inerrancy of scripture. Just a hypothesis.
Not even close to a fair representation, Raf. (but good job on the straw man argument.)
Yes, Paul and James plainly had differences. No question about it. But the question that needs to be asked and reasoned is WHY? And that question can be approached from either perspective (errancy or inerrancy.) Now, I can't speak much of what it might look like from the side of errancy. But, from the side of inerrancy, it makes perfectly good sense to me once you see that that were following two very different paths.
If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
This, of course, has nothing to do with whether the Bible can contain errors or contradict itself. It has only to do with a prophet making a prediction that does or does not come to pass (for example, promising to return within the lifetimes of the people who hear him preach live and in person, but still not having returned nearly 2,000 years later. Just for example).
So you can accept the verse in John and the verse in Deuteronomy without having to accept the premise of Biblical inerrancy, because neither verse addresses Biblical inerrancy. At all.
Let's look again at the verse in John 10:
31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” 33 The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’? 35 “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
Let's start with the obvious: The answer to Jesus' question is NO. It is NOT written in the law, "I said You Are Gods." So Jesus was wrong. It's written in Psalms, not in the Law.
So as an example of a verse that establishes the Bible cannot contain errors or contradictions, you are pointing to a verse in which Jesus Christ himself makes an error.
What does "the scripture cannot be broken" even mean? Does that mean it is without error or contradiction? Because then we have a problem, because the Old Testament is chock full of errors and contradictions. For example, it indicates a population of Hebrew slaves in Egypt that was way, way WAY higher than any such population could have been. There is as much evidence of a Nephite kingdom in pre-Colombian America as there is of widespread Hebrew slavery in pre-Moses Egypt. Heck, there's as much evidence of Nephites as there is of Moses. Which is to say, none.
Does the Old Testament contradict itself? Sure it does. All over the place. Errors? Aplenty! So if "the scripture cannot be broken" means "it cannot contain errors or contradictions," then we have a serious problem, because the scripture objectively DOES contain oodles of errors and contradictions.
John 10:35 is not talking about the gospels, itself, Acts, the Epistles or Revelation. I'll check the other verse at a later time, at which point I will be gleefully happy to address the remainder of your post.
So, when it's written that the love of money is the root of all evil, do you think and suppose that it's only referring to any money that already was or had been?
The point being, if it says "scripture," why think or suppose that it refers only to scripture that had already been written?
Or, perhaps your position is that neither the gospels, Acts, the Epistles or Revelation qualify as "scripture."
But if so, then why does Peter speak of Paul's epistles in relationship to "other scriptures" in 2Pet.3:16?
(Obviously, I don't yet get where your at or what your thinking is on some of these things...)
No, money is a generic concept of wealth, currency, etc. The statement that the love of money is the root of all evil is generic enough that it covers all the basis.
"Scripture" is not, on a couple of levels.
What gets included, and what gets excluded? "All scripture" is pretty much all inclusive. But on what basis do you propose James is included in "scripture" but the Gospel of Thomas is not? They're both scripture. So is II Timothy. So is the paragraph of notes I just took explaining why Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman will not be facing criminal charges. So is the Q'uran. Scripture just means "that which is written."
So the author of II Timothy says "all scripture." What is he talking about? HE TELLS YOU. He is not talking about the letter he is writing. He is not talking about letters and documents that have yet to be written. He tells you precisely what he's talking about in the preceding verses (I'll save you time: it's the Old Testament).
But when he says it's God-breathed, he is not saying that makes it without error or contradiction.
Back to John, Jesus says the scripture "cannot be broken." He's talking about the Old Testament too. More precisely, he's talking about THAT scripture. But even more to the point, "cannot be broken" DOES NOT mean without error or contradiction. If it does, then Jesus Christ just proved the Old Testament is not scripture, because the Old Testament contains errors and contradictions galore.
What gets included, and what gets excluded? "All scripture" is pretty much all inclusive. But on what basis do you propose James is included in "scripture" but the Gospel of Thomas is not? They're both scripture. So is II Timothy. So is the paragraph of notes I just took explaining why Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman will not be facing criminal charges. So is the Q'uran. Scripture just means "that which is written."
Perhaps it comes down to whether or not one believes that enough of the truth that was revealed and written down is preserved in what has been canonized as "the Bible" to communicate what God intended for it to communicate. There are always going to be fundamental premises that one either accepts or rejects for what may be no other reason that it is what they believe. It doesn't mean that premises can't ever be called into question or revisited, because if they don't or can't satisfy the reason for their acceptance, they're going to eventually prove to be worthless. However, if they continue, time and time again, to show or explain how or why things are as they are, there's no reason to ever change the premise. In other words, the deeper one's understanding of a matter (i.e., the more perfectly all of it flows together), the less likely it is that they are ever going to change what they believe about it. Given the amount of "makes perfectly good sense with all other" scripture that's currently stored in various places in my memory banks (some much more difficult to locate than others... lol), certain premises underlying it all have a lot of cement holding them in place.
Why not, instead, adopt the premise that fits the facts?
Since the Bible DOES contain errors and contradictions, why adopt a premise that is contrary to the facts? You can still study it, analyze it, try to see things from multiple perspectives, without having to make it all fit like a hand in a hooker.
For example, how many were crucified with Jesus? Ask Matthew: 2. Ask Mark: 2. Ask Luke: 2. Ask John: 2. Ask Bullinger/Wierwille: 4. HOW? And more importantly, why? Because two gospels have them crucified at the same time and the other two have them showing up later, so there had to be four? Even though not a single gospel writer gives you four? How about just allowing the contradiction and moving onto something more important, like the number of times Peter denied Jesus, which every single gospel says unequivocally was three times, so it must have been... six. And the cock crowed once. Or twice. Because twice Peter denied him thrice. It's nonsense! They're minor quibbles that are completely beside the point, but Wierwille would have you believe your Bible would absolutely crumble to pieces if Matthew and Luke contradict each other on when the others were crucified with Jesus or whether they both reviled him. It would crumble to pieces if Peter didn't deny Jesus six times, even though not a single gospel says it was six times.
Was Judas alive after the crucifixion and resurrection? Yes! Because Paul said Jesus was seen of the 12! Never mind that Matthew makes it clear the death was beforehand. Never mind that not a single gospel writer found it worth noting that Judas returned to the company of the apostles after the betrayal, which would have been a MOST noteworthy act of forgiveness, no? But we can't have Matthew contradicting Luke and John about the number of apostles who saw Jesus and who was missing. We can't have Paul simply be wrong when he says Jesus was seen of the "12" after his resurrection (probably because the story of Judas' betrayal had not yet been fabricated, but that's a whole other story.
So one gospel says Jesus appears to "the eleven." Another says the missing apostle was Thomas. So Judas must have been alive and in the company of the apostles.
Because heaven forbid any one of the gospel writers slipped on a detail.
Easier solution: Not every detail needs to fit to have an honest account. Three denials. Three crucified. 11 apostles after the resurrection. It's not complicated, unless you try to force inerrancy.
It's good to see some activity on this thread! From January 11th to the 15th I participated in an intensive doctorate level class on hermeneutics, or how we derive meaning from a text. I had to receive special permission, since I have not yet finished my master's degree. I was invited to attend by Dr. Lo$ano who taught the class, because of some discussions we had in the Hebrew class I had been taking from him. It was quite a time, but I didn't want to write anything about it till now, because I wanted some time to get over the rush and let things settle in. Perspective is everything.
There were six of us students in the class: an older female African American who reminded me very much of my mother, three active pastors, one of a Friends congregation and two of Wesleyan congregations, another fellow of an age similar to my own, and myself. Dr. Lo$ano is a middle-aged professor who was born and raised in Columbia, and who is currently writing a commentary on second Isaiah.
We didn't use any theology books in the class. (The way it worked, the participants read the books on the reading list before the class started, and were assigned to write brief reports on specific texts. During the in-residence week of the class, the students presented their reports and everyone discussed them. After the in-residence class, the students were to write their final papers for the class based on the week's worth of discussion.) The main text was "Is There a Text in This Class?" by Stanley Fish. Fish is known as a professor of law, who has also specialized in interpreting John Milton. I didn't have to do all the readings or present reports, since I was only auditing the class, but I got to participate fully in the discussions, and was able to bring some issues to the table from the years I spent teaching humane letters to seventh-graders. Dr. Lo$ano (he is a REAL doctor, you know!) kicked off the week by reading "Shakespeare in the Bush" by Laura Bohannon out loud, with his Columbian accent, and we got into lively discussion of Bohannon's experiences of trying to explain Hamlet to the Tiv. Google it... it's a good read!
Some of the texts were counter arguments to Fish's ideas about readers' response. One was "Is There a Meaning in This Text" by Kevin Vanhoozer. Dr. Lo$ano told some funny stories about these authors meeting each other at various conferences, and the snarky remarks they would make to each other! There were three main issues explored during the course of the week; looking for meaning BEHIND the text (or authorial intent) by examining the historical and literary contexts of the writer, looking for meaning IN the text by examining the genre and the forms, and looking for meaning IN FRONT of the text by examining the historical and literary contexts of the audience (or the reader's response).
At the very beginning of the class when we were introducing ourselves, I told them that my exposure to hermaneutics did not begin with the Bible but in the Navy Nuclear Power Program (see post #159 on this thread). At one point, one of the students was saying something about how difficult it is to come up with sufficiently precise definitions, and I stated something from my mechanical background that seemed perfectly obvious to me, but after the other students heard it, they sat there dumbfounded for a moment, and then started smacking their palms against their foreheads. If you have a bolt that has to go through a hole, and the size of both the bolt and the hole are identical, you cannot drive the bolt through the hole. You just can't do it. In order to put the bolt through the hole, the bolt has to be slightly smaller than the hole.The difference between the size of the bolt and the size of the hole is call the "tolerance." The tolerance can be measured with a feeler gauge. If a machine's parts are intended to move in relation to each other, that machine is said to be "articulated" (jointed). If the machine's parts are too close in dimension, if there is not enough tolerance, the parts will not move. SUFFICIENT TOLERANCE IS NECESSARY FOR ARTICULATION. If the definitions of our words are too tight, we can't use those words to articulate thought.
Wierwille made his definitions too tight.
My other great contribution to the class came as Dr. Lo$ano was leading a discussion of how we all have interpretive lenses that influence the meanings we read out from a text. He was having us do a thought experiment where we were all wearing red glasses. As an aside, I mentioned that in the original written version of "The Wizard of Oz" the Emerald City wasn't really green, but the Wizard made all the city's residents wear green colored glasses. That blew him away! It was all part of the Wizard's deception!
The upshot of the class was that there is not one single meaning to the text of the Bible or to any part of it. The meaning that each person takes away from their experience of the Bible will be as uniquely individual as the individual herself is!
In post #13 of this thread, Raf, you wrote "If you are going to tie your faith in the inspiration of the Bible to a belief that this book is an accurate telling of events that took place in history, without error or contradiction, then you are going to be walking on a very fragile faith."
That is very, very true! Which brings me to another thing I've been thinking about an error made by Luther and propagated throughout Protestantism. "Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by Scripture alone") is the Christian [--Protestant -- Steve] doctrine that the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice."
This doctrine has led to the erroneous belief that the Bible is God's PRIMARY means of communicating with people. But the truth is that God's primary means of communicating with people is THROUGH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST BY MEANS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The Bible itself is only SECONDARY. I can see communication through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit as being inerrant, but not the Bible by any means whatsoever!
All for now... my hemoglobin numbers are too low, I am anemic, but the medics say I am describing myself as asymptomatic. That means I don't perceive myself as short of breath, light-headed or fatigued... they warn me that I may really be feeling those things, but I've done it for so long, that it feels normal to me now. Talk about how we interpret the meaning of our experience from the stories we tell ourselves! I'm thankful for my friends... and I count you all as my friends!
No need. It's your opinion and fine by me. I don't think it's much of an argument.
Agreed, it not much of an argument, nor is it intended to be.
It's two entirely different perspectives. Facts, in a manner of speaking, are like crystals. What they reveal depends entirely upon the light that shines through them. Change the source (or the position they're viewed from), and the picture changes.
Proposition C: The Bible contains factual errors and contradictions.
Proposition D: The Bible does not contain factual errors or contradictions.
A and B are mutually exclusive (taken as a whole). They cannot both be true in totality. They can both be true in part, but then we open a whole new can of worms, so let's keep the premise simple for now and we can explore the possibilities later. The Bible as a whole is either God-breathed or it's not. You can't have both.
C and D are also mutually exclusive.
This thread questions whether we can accept Proposition A at the same time as we accept proposition C. I don't see why you can't, especially when you recognize that Proposition D is objectively untrue. It does contain errors and contradictions (we've used the Quirinian census as a prime example, and no one has refuted it on this thread or, to an acceptable degree, anywhere else. There was no census that required Joseph to move from where he lived because his great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandfather was King David. That's not how censuses work. Plus, the census in question was taken after Herod died, so Jesus couldn't have been born during the census AND during the life of Herod. This is a factual error, pure and simple. As for contradictions, we again note the irreconcilable differences between the accounts in Matthew and Luke. There are errors AND contradictions in the Bible).
So to me, the only question that remains is "A and C," or "B and C"?
"B and C" is off-topic. There's nothing to discuss there.
So we're back to the original question: Is A and C possible? I contend that if you're employing reason AND faith, you must accept A and C.
A and D employs faith but abandons reason. You're entitled to the opinion, but you carry the burden of refuting the errors and contradictions. Good luck with that. Personally, I reject appeals to "the original inspired writings" because, frankly, it undermines the Bible we have to such a degree that it becomes pointless to examine. You can't say "This is the Word of God," have me say "ok, but here's a blatant error and/or contradiction" and then answer that with "Well, the original writing was inspired and perfect. You just caught the aberration." There are hundreds of such aberrations.
Again, you can accept proposition D as a matter of faith, and I won't argue it. But you can't, in my opinion, draw reasonable inferences from it because reason didn't get you there in the first place. You can try! No one's stopping you. But when you do, there's no guarantee the inference you draw will stand up to reason.
That's about as far as I can go in this discussion, because I accept Propositions B and C. But I firmly believe that if anyone is going to argue "A and D," the burden to address errors and contradictions becomes theirs.
So we're back to the original question: Is A and C possible? I contend that if you're employing reason AND faith, you must accept A and C.
A and D employs faith but abandons reason. You're entitled to the opinion, but you carry the burden of refuting the errors and contradictions. Good luck with that. Personally, I reject appeals to "the original inspired writings" because, frankly, it undermines the Bible we have to such a degree that it becomes pointless to examine. You can't say "This is the Word of God," have me say "ok, but here's a blatant error and/or contradiction" and then answer that with "Well, the original writing was inspired and perfect. You just caught the aberration." There are hundreds of such aberrations.
Again, you can accept proposition D as a matter of faith, and I won't argue it. But you can't, in my opinion, draw reasonable inferences from it because reason didn't get you there in the first place. You can try! No one's stopping you. But when you do, there's no guarantee the inference you draw will stand up to reason.
That's about as far as I can go in this discussion, because I accept Propositions B and C. But I firmly believe that if anyone is going to argue "A and D," the burden to address errors and contradictions becomes theirs.
You've drawn a nice square box around it, but I'm not so persuaded that's the whole of it. Nor do I concur with the "must accept" of it, as I think that there are too significant a number of apparent errors and contradictions that melt away when the viewed or considered from the proper perspective.
Although you're quick to reject any and all appeals to "the original inspired writings," sound reasoning doesn't disallow it. More fairly, they would need to be honestly considered on a case by case review.
And this "burden of proof" thing is yet another matter. To prove what, exactly? Inerrancy?
If it can't be fully or completely done (which I'd probably agree with you, isn't likely), why require it prior to allowing any and all possibility for it?
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waysider
I buried Paul. Sincerely, The Walrus
Steve Lortz
There is a thing we've been taught to do at Anderson University (all the way from freshman introductory Bible courses to grad school exegetical papers) called the hermeneutic or the exegetical circle.
Steve Lortz
I don't understand why you have a hang-up about the authorship of Luke-Acts. There are parts of the NT whose authorship is very much open to question, especially Paul's pastoral epistles, and serious
Steve Lortz
Thanks for the reference, Mark! But my neuron-pathways were set up in the days of slide rules, manual typewriters and party lines. I was a teenager when the first transistor radios started coming over from Japan. I remember the days when vacuum tubes ruled the earth! I've been haunting the stacks at the Nicholson Library for decades, even when I wasn't taking classes at AU, and I love the smell of pulp. Besides, walking to and from the library counts as physical therapy for me. Treadmills bore me senseless!
Here is the work I did on John 6:63,
to pneuma estin to zoopoioun, he sarx ouk ophelei ouden: ta rhemata a ego lelaleka humin pneuma estin kai zoe estin.
Literal translation: the spirit is the one who is making alive, the flesh not helps not even: the sayings that I am speaking to you spirit is and life is.
Sense translation: The Spirit is the one who is making alive, the flesh does NOT help, not in any way: the sayings that I AM SPEAKING to you are spirit and are life.
Zoopoioun is a participle that I think is best translated by the phrase I've given. The double negative of ouk and ouden emphasizes the fact that the flesh does NOT help. Inclusion of the word ego puts extra-special emphasis on the "I" and the perfect tense of lelaleka puts emphasis on "I am speaking." The inclusion of the verb estin for both spirit and life points out the fact that they are being regarded here as two different ways of looking at the same phenomenon. They can't be translated as "spiritual life" or lively spirit". The subject of the last clause is plural, but the verbs used with spirit and life are singular. It might be possible to translate the last clause as "the sayings that I am speaking to you is one spirit and is one life, but in my opinion that would be overplaying the shift in number, and it doesn't make good English.
All for now... more later...
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
I didn't make it to the library today... maybe tomorrow...
Love,
Steve
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waysider
It's not going anywhere. :)
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Raf
I second that, waysider. It's not going anywhere.
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Steve Lortz
Things are moving slowly, what with my anemia and the end of the semester. Our semester final in Hebrew is Monday morning.
But they are moving. Here is the text of a letter I just sent a short time ago.
All for now...
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
Dr. Hawkins gave me permission to attend the class. I've started reading de Saussure's course. What I've learned so far is that de Saussure views language as a social construct that engages both the associative and the imaginative faculties in the minds of those who participate. The questions that exercise me are "what is it that flows?" and "how is that flow purposefully regulated?"
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
Thinking about John 6:63 where Jesus said, "The sayings I am speaking to you are spirit and are life." How can sayings be spirit and life?
If we recognize the factor common to both spirit and life, that they each consist of purposefully regulated flows of constituent elements, then we need to examine "sayings" as purposely regulated flows of constituent elements. What are those elements? How do they flow? How is that flow regulated? To what purposes?
It seems to me that "language" is the best word for an overall descriptor of what I'm thinking about. It seems that language is not a simple, but rather a complex set of flows occurring simultaneously on multiple levels. At the most basic level (above the individual cell) we have the flow of electrical charges along neuron pathways. At the highest level we have the flow of "meanings" or "understandings". Language is primarily a social phenomenon, that is, for full communication to take place, there needs to be a loop between a sender and a receiver that allows for feedback.
Among the things a brain needs to be able to do in order for language to exist are:
1. To register sensations
2. To remember sensations
3. To imagine, that is, to be able to hold the image of a thing not present
4. To associate, that is, to form and remember links such that one image evokes another image.
Learning a language is a social thing that a child does from an early age by observing and imitating the people around it. The child learns to associate abstract sounds with the images of particular items, then learns to generalize the sound to other, similar items. The child learns to form the sounds herself, and looks to feedback from her examples to improve, and come up to the standard.
All for now...
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
A point of curiosity, Raf...
I cut my hermeneutical teeth, not on the Bible, but on the Reactor Plant Control Manual and the Engineering Department Operating Procedures. Both were volumes a couple of inches thick, and we were expected to operate the plant "in verbatim compliance with posted procedure". An "incident" was defined as any occurrence that involved a potential loss of plant control. Whenever there was an incident, there would be an incident review, in which a board of officers would interview every person involved in the incident, and examine their decisions and actions in light of the operating procedures. The cause of the incident would be discovered, and action would be taken to see that the incident would not be repeated. A report of the incident review would be forwarded to Naval Reactors. Every month, a series of formal procedural changes would be sent from Naval Reactors to each Engineering Department to update the procedures based on experience, and to keep the procedures uniform throughout the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet.
The procedures constantly required interpretation, which meant discovering the concrete meaning of what had been written and applying that meaning in specific situations. And we had to be able to argue those interpretations with serious consequences at stake.
There have been times in my life when I have earned my living by doing technical writing, that is, writing product descriptions, installation instructions and operating procedures. Customer safety and satisfaction depended on how well I wrote.
I never made a living at it, but I have had several games published, and I've contributed to several others. The rules systems for games are simply procedures for having imaginary fun. But there are people we used to call "rules lawyers" who can spoil the fun by using the technicalities of the system to negate the spirit of the game (huh!?! games can have a "spirit"? and I don't mean TWI's "debbil spurts").
Have you every written procedures, Raf? Have you ever tried to devise a "fool-proof" procedure? If so, I'd like to know what philosophy you used when you were writing them. Thanks!
Love,
Steve
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TLC
Then I suppose you might take John 10:35 to mean something else when it says "scripture cannot be broken."
An interpretation of Duet. 18:22 might also be needed.
But, perhaps you want (or are making) a distinction between "the Bible" and scripture.
Okay, so the Bible (as we have it) is what has been canonized (or, endorsed as being scripture.)
Perhaps the real thing being discussed here is whether "all scripture" is inspired (or "God-breathed"), and not whether all scripture is or isn't included in the Bible.
Care to clarify and/or explain?
What part of living in this world doesn't involve a premise of some sort?
Somebody here will likely take a position against man having (or making) a choice (I'll steer clear of referring to it as "free will"), but that's another issue. But I see no problem in acknowledging that there were no errors in the original inspired writings, and considering/studying/working (whatever you prefer) the scriptures from that vantage point.
Logic can serve to build tremendous theological systems. But if the premise is faulty (or incorrect), then... well, you know the rest.
Whether one accepts that premise that all scripture in inspired of God (and without error) significantly changes what is results in his (or her) mind.
Personally, I chose which premise to adhere to a long time ago (well before VPW and TWI). Sure doesn't mean that I have always built right, or that I haven't had to (a number of times) dig deep and rip out significant chunks of ideological error. However, it has always been the bedrock that I've been tethered to. And (surprisingly enough) more answers have come to light for me in recent years, not from the Greek (or Hebrew or Aramaic or any other "in depth" research into the early manuscripts), but simply by changing certain perspectives on what (and why) things are written where and as they are in the Bible, primarily using the KJV. The difference such a relatively small change can make is, well... for lack of a better word, astounding.
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Raf
John 10:35 is not talking about the gospels, itself, Acts, the Epistles or Revelation. I'll check the other verse at a later time, at which point I will be gleefully happy to address the remainder of your post.
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TLC
Well, seems I disagree. Division certainly can be because of a wrong dividing of the Word, and I don't know why you think it wouldn't. Neither do I see why you might think that an acceptance of some doctrine of errancy (if there be such a thing) would eliminate (or even alleviate) any division. (Not that you said that, but it's alluded to.) While inerrancy may indeed breed an attitude of inflexibility, neither should it (nor does it always) demand an immediate answer or solution to every apparent discrepancy... meaning that certain things might be subject to ongoing evaluation and possible change. If that's not flexible, then perhaps I don't understand your use of the word "inflexibility."
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TLC
Not even close to a fair representation, Raf. (but good job on the straw man argument.)
Yes, Paul and James plainly had differences. No question about it. But the question that needs to be asked and reasoned is WHY? And that question can be approached from either perspective (errancy or inerrancy.) Now, I can't speak much of what it might look like from the side of errancy. But, from the side of inerrancy, it makes perfectly good sense to me once you see that that were following two very different paths.
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Raf
This, of course, has nothing to do with whether the Bible can contain errors or contradict itself. It has only to do with a prophet making a prediction that does or does not come to pass (for example, promising to return within the lifetimes of the people who hear him preach live and in person, but still not having returned nearly 2,000 years later. Just for example).
So you can accept the verse in John and the verse in Deuteronomy without having to accept the premise of Biblical inerrancy, because neither verse addresses Biblical inerrancy. At all.
Let's look again at the verse in John 10:
Let's start with the obvious: The answer to Jesus' question is NO. It is NOT written in the law, "I said You Are Gods." So Jesus was wrong. It's written in Psalms, not in the Law.
So as an example of a verse that establishes the Bible cannot contain errors or contradictions, you are pointing to a verse in which Jesus Christ himself makes an error.
What does "the scripture cannot be broken" even mean? Does that mean it is without error or contradiction? Because then we have a problem, because the Old Testament is chock full of errors and contradictions. For example, it indicates a population of Hebrew slaves in Egypt that was way, way WAY higher than any such population could have been. There is as much evidence of a Nephite kingdom in pre-Colombian America as there is of widespread Hebrew slavery in pre-Moses Egypt. Heck, there's as much evidence of Nephites as there is of Moses. Which is to say, none.
Does the Old Testament contradict itself? Sure it does. All over the place. Errors? Aplenty! So if "the scripture cannot be broken" means "it cannot contain errors or contradictions," then we have a serious problem, because the scripture objectively DOES contain oodles of errors and contradictions.
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TLC
So, when it's written that the love of money is the root of all evil, do you think and suppose that it's only referring to any money that already was or had been?
The point being, if it says "scripture," why think or suppose that it refers only to scripture that had already been written?
Or, perhaps your position is that neither the gospels, Acts, the Epistles or Revelation qualify as "scripture."
But if so, then why does Peter speak of Paul's epistles in relationship to "other scriptures" in 2Pet.3:16?
(Obviously, I don't yet get where your at or what your thinking is on some of these things...)
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Raf
No, money is a generic concept of wealth, currency, etc. The statement that the love of money is the root of all evil is generic enough that it covers all the basis.
"Scripture" is not, on a couple of levels.
What gets included, and what gets excluded? "All scripture" is pretty much all inclusive. But on what basis do you propose James is included in "scripture" but the Gospel of Thomas is not? They're both scripture. So is II Timothy. So is the paragraph of notes I just took explaining why Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman will not be facing criminal charges. So is the Q'uran. Scripture just means "that which is written."
So the author of II Timothy says "all scripture." What is he talking about? HE TELLS YOU. He is not talking about the letter he is writing. He is not talking about letters and documents that have yet to be written. He tells you precisely what he's talking about in the preceding verses (I'll save you time: it's the Old Testament).
But when he says it's God-breathed, he is not saying that makes it without error or contradiction.
Back to John, Jesus says the scripture "cannot be broken." He's talking about the Old Testament too. More precisely, he's talking about THAT scripture. But even more to the point, "cannot be broken" DOES NOT mean without error or contradiction. If it does, then Jesus Christ just proved the Old Testament is not scripture, because the Old Testament contains errors and contradictions galore.
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TLC
Perhaps it comes down to whether or not one believes that enough of the truth that was revealed and written down is preserved in what has been canonized as "the Bible" to communicate what God intended for it to communicate. There are always going to be fundamental premises that one either accepts or rejects for what may be no other reason that it is what they believe. It doesn't mean that premises can't ever be called into question or revisited, because if they don't or can't satisfy the reason for their acceptance, they're going to eventually prove to be worthless. However, if they continue, time and time again, to show or explain how or why things are as they are, there's no reason to ever change the premise. In other words, the deeper one's understanding of a matter (i.e., the more perfectly all of it flows together), the less likely it is that they are ever going to change what they believe about it. Given the amount of "makes perfectly good sense with all other" scripture that's currently stored in various places in my memory banks (some much more difficult to locate than others... lol), certain premises underlying it all have a lot of cement holding them in place.
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Raf
Why not, instead, adopt the premise that fits the facts?
Since the Bible DOES contain errors and contradictions, why adopt a premise that is contrary to the facts? You can still study it, analyze it, try to see things from multiple perspectives, without having to make it all fit like a hand in a hooker.
For example, how many were crucified with Jesus? Ask Matthew: 2. Ask Mark: 2. Ask Luke: 2. Ask John: 2. Ask Bullinger/Wierwille: 4. HOW? And more importantly, why? Because two gospels have them crucified at the same time and the other two have them showing up later, so there had to be four? Even though not a single gospel writer gives you four? How about just allowing the contradiction and moving onto something more important, like the number of times Peter denied Jesus, which every single gospel says unequivocally was three times, so it must have been... six. And the cock crowed once. Or twice. Because twice Peter denied him thrice. It's nonsense! They're minor quibbles that are completely beside the point, but Wierwille would have you believe your Bible would absolutely crumble to pieces if Matthew and Luke contradict each other on when the others were crucified with Jesus or whether they both reviled him. It would crumble to pieces if Peter didn't deny Jesus six times, even though not a single gospel says it was six times.
Was Judas alive after the crucifixion and resurrection? Yes! Because Paul said Jesus was seen of the 12! Never mind that Matthew makes it clear the death was beforehand. Never mind that not a single gospel writer found it worth noting that Judas returned to the company of the apostles after the betrayal, which would have been a MOST noteworthy act of forgiveness, no? But we can't have Matthew contradicting Luke and John about the number of apostles who saw Jesus and who was missing. We can't have Paul simply be wrong when he says Jesus was seen of the "12" after his resurrection (probably because the story of Judas' betrayal had not yet been fabricated, but that's a whole other story.
So one gospel says Jesus appears to "the eleven." Another says the missing apostle was Thomas. So Judas must have been alive and in the company of the apostles.
Because heaven forbid any one of the gospel writers slipped on a detail.
Easier solution: Not every detail needs to fit to have an honest account. Three denials. Three crucified. 11 apostles after the resurrection. It's not complicated, unless you try to force inerrancy.
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Steve Lortz
It's good to see some activity on this thread! From January 11th to the 15th I participated in an intensive doctorate level class on hermeneutics, or how we derive meaning from a text. I had to receive special permission, since I have not yet finished my master's degree. I was invited to attend by Dr. Lo$ano who taught the class, because of some discussions we had in the Hebrew class I had been taking from him. It was quite a time, but I didn't want to write anything about it till now, because I wanted some time to get over the rush and let things settle in. Perspective is everything.
There were six of us students in the class: an older female African American who reminded me very much of my mother, three active pastors, one of a Friends congregation and two of Wesleyan congregations, another fellow of an age similar to my own, and myself. Dr. Lo$ano is a middle-aged professor who was born and raised in Columbia, and who is currently writing a commentary on second Isaiah.
We didn't use any theology books in the class. (The way it worked, the participants read the books on the reading list before the class started, and were assigned to write brief reports on specific texts. During the in-residence week of the class, the students presented their reports and everyone discussed them. After the in-residence class, the students were to write their final papers for the class based on the week's worth of discussion.) The main text was "Is There a Text in This Class?" by Stanley Fish. Fish is known as a professor of law, who has also specialized in interpreting John Milton. I didn't have to do all the readings or present reports, since I was only auditing the class, but I got to participate fully in the discussions, and was able to bring some issues to the table from the years I spent teaching humane letters to seventh-graders. Dr. Lo$ano (he is a REAL doctor, you know!) kicked off the week by reading "Shakespeare in the Bush" by Laura Bohannon out loud, with his Columbian accent, and we got into lively discussion of Bohannon's experiences of trying to explain Hamlet to the Tiv. Google it... it's a good read!
Some of the texts were counter arguments to Fish's ideas about readers' response. One was "Is There a Meaning in This Text" by Kevin Vanhoozer. Dr. Lo$ano told some funny stories about these authors meeting each other at various conferences, and the snarky remarks they would make to each other! There were three main issues explored during the course of the week; looking for meaning BEHIND the text (or authorial intent) by examining the historical and literary contexts of the writer, looking for meaning IN the text by examining the genre and the forms, and looking for meaning IN FRONT of the text by examining the historical and literary contexts of the audience (or the reader's response).
At the very beginning of the class when we were introducing ourselves, I told them that my exposure to hermaneutics did not begin with the Bible but in the Navy Nuclear Power Program (see post #159 on this thread). At one point, one of the students was saying something about how difficult it is to come up with sufficiently precise definitions, and I stated something from my mechanical background that seemed perfectly obvious to me, but after the other students heard it, they sat there dumbfounded for a moment, and then started smacking their palms against their foreheads. If you have a bolt that has to go through a hole, and the size of both the bolt and the hole are identical, you cannot drive the bolt through the hole. You just can't do it. In order to put the bolt through the hole, the bolt has to be slightly smaller than the hole.The difference between the size of the bolt and the size of the hole is call the "tolerance." The tolerance can be measured with a feeler gauge. If a machine's parts are intended to move in relation to each other, that machine is said to be "articulated" (jointed). If the machine's parts are too close in dimension, if there is not enough tolerance, the parts will not move. SUFFICIENT TOLERANCE IS NECESSARY FOR ARTICULATION. If the definitions of our words are too tight, we can't use those words to articulate thought.
Wierwille made his definitions too tight.
My other great contribution to the class came as Dr. Lo$ano was leading a discussion of how we all have interpretive lenses that influence the meanings we read out from a text. He was having us do a thought experiment where we were all wearing red glasses. As an aside, I mentioned that in the original written version of "The Wizard of Oz" the Emerald City wasn't really green, but the Wizard made all the city's residents wear green colored glasses. That blew him away! It was all part of the Wizard's deception!
The upshot of the class was that there is not one single meaning to the text of the Bible or to any part of it. The meaning that each person takes away from their experience of the Bible will be as uniquely individual as the individual herself is!
In post #13 of this thread, Raf, you wrote "If you are going to tie your faith in the inspiration of the Bible to a belief that this book is an accurate telling of events that took place in history, without error or contradiction, then you are going to be walking on a very fragile faith."
That is very, very true! Which brings me to another thing I've been thinking about an error made by Luther and propagated throughout Protestantism. "Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by Scripture alone") is the Christian [--Protestant -- Steve] doctrine that the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice."
This doctrine has led to the erroneous belief that the Bible is God's PRIMARY means of communicating with people. But the truth is that God's primary means of communicating with people is THROUGH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST BY MEANS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The Bible itself is only SECONDARY. I can see communication through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit as being inerrant, but not the Bible by any means whatsoever!
All for now... my hemoglobin numbers are too low, I am anemic, but the medics say I am describing myself as asymptomatic. That means I don't perceive myself as short of breath, light-headed or fatigued... they warn me that I may really be feeling those things, but I've done it for so long, that it feels normal to me now. Talk about how we interpret the meaning of our experience from the stories we tell ourselves! I'm thankful for my friends... and I count you all as my friends!
Love,
Steve
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TLC
Oh, I'm sure you're going to get off on this response...
Because processing all the facts take a tremendous amount of mental capacity, and God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
The really smart folk, those with higher and greater intellectually ability, ALWAYS want to start with the facts. It gives them an edge up.
Spank me now, eh?
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Raf
No need. It's your opinion and fine by me. I don't think it's much of an argument.
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TLC
Agreed, it not much of an argument, nor is it intended to be.
It's two entirely different perspectives. Facts, in a manner of speaking, are like crystals. What they reveal depends entirely upon the light that shines through them. Change the source (or the position they're viewed from), and the picture changes.
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Raf
And this being the doctrinal section, I do not have a doctrinal argument against your position.
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Raf
The way I see it, we have four propositions.
Proposition A: The Bible is God-breathed.
Proposition B: The Bible is not God-breathed.
Proposition C: The Bible contains factual errors and contradictions.
Proposition D: The Bible does not contain factual errors or contradictions.
A and B are mutually exclusive (taken as a whole). They cannot both be true in totality. They can both be true in part, but then we open a whole new can of worms, so let's keep the premise simple for now and we can explore the possibilities later. The Bible as a whole is either God-breathed or it's not. You can't have both.
C and D are also mutually exclusive.
This thread questions whether we can accept Proposition A at the same time as we accept proposition C. I don't see why you can't, especially when you recognize that Proposition D is objectively untrue. It does contain errors and contradictions (we've used the Quirinian census as a prime example, and no one has refuted it on this thread or, to an acceptable degree, anywhere else. There was no census that required Joseph to move from where he lived because his great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandfather was King David. That's not how censuses work. Plus, the census in question was taken after Herod died, so Jesus couldn't have been born during the census AND during the life of Herod. This is a factual error, pure and simple. As for contradictions, we again note the irreconcilable differences between the accounts in Matthew and Luke. There are errors AND contradictions in the Bible).
So to me, the only question that remains is "A and C," or "B and C"?
"B and C" is off-topic. There's nothing to discuss there.
So we're back to the original question: Is A and C possible? I contend that if you're employing reason AND faith, you must accept A and C.
A and D employs faith but abandons reason. You're entitled to the opinion, but you carry the burden of refuting the errors and contradictions. Good luck with that. Personally, I reject appeals to "the original inspired writings" because, frankly, it undermines the Bible we have to such a degree that it becomes pointless to examine. You can't say "This is the Word of God," have me say "ok, but here's a blatant error and/or contradiction" and then answer that with "Well, the original writing was inspired and perfect. You just caught the aberration." There are hundreds of such aberrations.
Again, you can accept proposition D as a matter of faith, and I won't argue it. But you can't, in my opinion, draw reasonable inferences from it because reason didn't get you there in the first place. You can try! No one's stopping you. But when you do, there's no guarantee the inference you draw will stand up to reason.
That's about as far as I can go in this discussion, because I accept Propositions B and C. But I firmly believe that if anyone is going to argue "A and D," the burden to address errors and contradictions becomes theirs.
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TLC
You've drawn a nice square box around it, but I'm not so persuaded that's the whole of it. Nor do I concur with the "must accept" of it, as I think that there are too significant a number of apparent errors and contradictions that melt away when the viewed or considered from the proper perspective.
Although you're quick to reject any and all appeals to "the original inspired writings," sound reasoning doesn't disallow it. More fairly, they would need to be honestly considered on a case by case review.
And this "burden of proof" thing is yet another matter. To prove what, exactly? Inerrancy?
If it can't be fully or completely done (which I'd probably agree with you, isn't likely), why require it prior to allowing any and all possibility for it?
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