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Author Topic:   What is truth?
cmanteuf
Member (Idle past 6766 days)
Posts: 92
From: Virginia, USA
Joined: 11-08-2004


Message 1 of 2 (171733)
12-27-2004 1:05 PM


Two days ago I did the Christmas Day reading for my (Episcopal) church. It was Luke's Nativity (Luke 2). Reading Luke 2:2 aloud to the congregation, I thought about it again.
"This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria."
This of course is a timeline conflict with the reign of Herod[1]. Now there are several different ways to approach this conflict. One way, the Fundamentalist way, assumes that the entire Bible must be correct in every respect, and therefore no contradiction between various parts; therefore we are fully justified in essentially making up facts to bring them it into concordance. The entire Bible's truth value must be treated as one unit, and since the Bible is true (a premise based on faith) then this isn't a problem, and so facts get massaged.
Another way of looking at it is common in the liberal wing of mainline churches: these contradictions arise because people- errant, falliable people- wrote the Bible. The degree to which a person believes those authors introduced error varies depending on the person[2], but any given contradiction can be explained away as 'the falliable people introduced it', not that God's word is faulty or that the basic point of the story is wrong.
A third interpretation uses a different premise but the same logic as the all-or-nothing approach above: since the Bible is supposed to be God's Word, and God's Word has contradictions, then therefore God as the Judeo-Christian's identify him must not exist.
[Note that those three interpretations do not span the set of all people. There are other interpretations out there, but I ignore them for the purposes of this discussion.]
Both the first and the last interpretation assume that truth of the Good Book has a binary value- the validity of the entire Bible stands or falls on relatively minor points like what year Christ was born in or how old the universe is. The key points of the Bible, the messages in it, both groups ignore in favor of fighting over things that are orthogonal to the message of the Bible, it seems to me.
I'm sure you can guess what my personal beliefs as to Biblical innerancy are from the way I've described the various options. What I am curious about are your thoughts on this topic. Do you think that for some people the issue of Biblical truth takes on a binary value? Should the truth of the Bible have a binary value? Could one of our inerrantist posters or one of the Non-Judeo-Christian-Muslim's who use the argument I outlined above explain why they believe that the truth of the Bible should be either 100% true or false?
Unfortunately, a combination of work, relatives, and girlfriend related activities will keep me from posting regularly until the middle of January or so, so I won't be able to ride heard on a discussion and keep it in line. My apologies, and I trust that our moderators will do their usual fine job of keeping everything on topic.
[1]: Not the right topic for a discussion of this particular point. I use it merely as an example of an entire category of issues with Biblical inerrancy. If you want to discuss this individual point (which I believe has been done to death before) find another thread.
[2]: Just as the interpretation of what the Bible says varies depending on the person. Comparing a conservative Southern Baptist's interpretation of the Bible to a conservative Lutheran to an Amish interpretation shows one how different the same words can be when interpreted by different people, even within the framework of inerrancy. But that is also a different discussion for a different thread.
Chris

  
AdminNosy
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Message 2 of 2 (171739)
12-27-2004 1:38 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
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