Is the bible authoritive and truly inspired?

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The Acts 2 experience that has been happening to Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for the last 2000 years confirms that the Bible is authoritive and truly inspired, confirming all the Bible prophesies which led up to Acts 2.

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Yes, "it is about the book and what is/was written." Either what has been happening to Believers for 2000 years confirms the truth of what was written then, or it doesn't. Billions of Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ that have entered into the Acts 2 experience know the Bible is authoritive and truly inspired. Billions of unbelievers say it doesn't. Maybe will just have to leave it at that.

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This thread isn't about the truth of the Bible. It's about authority and inspiration. It doesn't matter if what the authors wrote is true or not.Do we have what the authors wrote? No, we don't have the actual originals. We have some versions due to textual criticism take us back to the closest we have to an "original".Playing the emotional experience card is exactly what charlatans do. "Don't look at the text and just listen to what I'm saying." That's how the snare people.Understanding the reality of the Bible can help people make an informed choice instead of an emotional choice. Understanding the reality of the Bible can help people not get taken advantage of by an oppressive church.I suggest that if you don't like textual criticism, that you don't participate in these types of discussions. You're not moving the discussion forward.

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Just where do you think authority and inspiration come from? You must think it comes from man, and not from something higher than man.

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That question doesn't make sense given what I said. Whether the Bible is authoritative and truly inspired is the point of the thread. The question has been several times, which version of the Bible is sanctioned by God?

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Yes, understanding the reality of the Bible can help people make an informed choice. But when you start out by saying/believing that it doesn't matter if what the authors wrote is true or not, how can you or anyone else possibly make an informed choice.

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So it is important that we know what was actually written before we can determine whether it is true. If a portion wasn't written by the original author, but is determine to be true, then does God sanction changing the text back to the oldest version or did he inspire the scribe to make the change and it should be left as is?

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Either what the authors wrote in the Bible still happens to those whom God is calling to Himself, or it doesn't. Either God saves sinners, or He doesn't. That is the true reality that can help people make an informed choice, not by spending endless hours in textual criticisms.

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Textual criticism is necessary to understand what the authors actually wrote. There's no way to know whether God saves sinners or not if you referring to the salvation after death.If you're talking about someone changing their wrong behavior to right behavior, that happens in society without the Bible. Judaism inspires some to change, Buddhism inspires some to change, Islam inspires some to change, etc. Some are inspired to change and then find a religion to help them understand how to behave. Even religion free people are inspired to change their life to better behavior without religion. So that's not really a selling point for the authority or inspiration of the Bible or the "truth" for that matter.Without man religion doesn't exist. Mankind gives religion its power. Mankind gives authority to the Bible(s). That's why there are so many different Bibles that are the "authority" for the various groups that use them.If the KJV is translated from a flawed text, who sanctioned the translation? God or man?You're not showing me that God; as opposed to theological issues, social issues, and political issues; inspired the writers. IMO, they were all sources for inspiration for the writers, the scribes, the translators, and the textual critics.Playing on emotions and weaknesses is what pulls people into cults and religion if they weren't born into them.Show me that Ehrman's facts are wrong.

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Meanwhile, as far as attribution of authorship to Moses within the canon itself, go have a look at Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 31:24-26; Joshua 8:31, 23:6; 2 Kings 14:6; several passages in 2 Chronicles; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 8:1; Nehemiah 13:1; Mark 12:26; and Hebrews 9:19.

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Exodus 17:14 is not speaking of the work we know as Exodus. The narrator is telling us that Moses was told to write about the battle with Amalek and his people.As for the rest that refer to the book of the law, Law of Moses, or the book of the covenant; the text doesn't reflect that it is talking about the books containing those statements or the compilation containing those books.Jewish tradition says that Moses wrote the first five books. Jewish tradition also says that the original scroll of the Torah and other holy writings were burned when the Temple was destroyed in 587 BCE based on the first century writing 4 Ezra 14:2-22. This is supposedly Ezra speaking to God. In the book entitled "A History of the Jews" by Paul Johnson, Johnson notes that intellectual Jewish Reformers, about 170 bce, understood that the Law they had was not very old and did not go back to the time of Moses. (Page 101)ABE: Literary and Historical Criticism of the PentateuchEdited by purpledawn, : ABE: Some light reading

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The Savior said There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. --Gospel of Mary

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Paul's Corinthain letter was written in response to a letter from the Corinthian church written to him.

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If we had the writing that Paul was responding to, probably verses 36,37 would not seem out of place.

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Yes, it would be nice if we had all the letters written to Paul as well as his responses, but we don't so it is useless in this discussion.Given Paul's more equal treatment of women in his writings, the verses don't fit and as I explained in Message 316, scholars feel the verses were later margin notes added to the text by scribes. When compared to other manuscripts, the verses weren't always placed in the same place and contradict earlier teachings in the same letter.

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If you are arguing that "on balance" God is nicer than he is mean across the entirety of the Bible, then you are arguing that God is NOT divine.

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He either KNOWS ALL and CHOOSES to act immorally.
Or he DOESN'T KNOW ALL and therefore can't be held accountable if he does something wrong.

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The only choice NOT available to you is the position you are trying to take:
"Everything in the Bible is true, God is good, please pretend like some of the stuff in the Bible isn't there."

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This is all irrelevant to whether the Bible is authoritative and truly inspired.Whether a god is all powerful or not, moral or not, just or not; does not dictate whether the holy books of this god are authoritative and truly inspired. It may be why some believe they are, but trying to show that the god of the Bible is immoral or unjust doesn't mean the holy books of the religion are not authoritative or inspired.Look at the questions in Message 1. This thread isn't about whether God is real, moral, all powerfull, or just.

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I disagree. This is absolutely essential for proving or disproving.

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Since the Bible lays out specific "rules" from "God" and ALSO tells us that "God" is good and forgiving, etc. Any actions by "God" which break that narrative can be seen as errors.

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Either the people writing the Bible got God's actions wrong - and therefore it's not inspired
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They got God's actions right, but the word of God in other parts is wrong - and therefore it's not inspired.
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Or God's actions and word essentially randomly change depending on who's writing it - and therefore it's make believe.

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I still disagree and will be watching the discussion. If it turns into the same old morality discussion, it will probably be closed.

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3. How do we know the writings we have today are the same as they were written by the original men who wrote it.

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We have no autographs. We only have copies. As you know textural critics can trace how in transmission of copies some typos were added in many cases.

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There are thousands of such typos. The people who really care and cover these matters catalogue these changes.

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But 98% of them are trvialities which effect no major tenet of faith. I can back that up latter.

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I get this information from the book "A General Introduction to the Bible" by Giesler and Nix. It of course draws on many scholarly sources itself.

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I'm not talking about "typos". The added lines I mentioned in Message 316 are not typos.In Message 312, I listed the top ten most familiar verses that weren't originally in the New Testament.This means that all people throughout the ages were not guided by the same words.I agree that the "typos" for the most part don't impact the basic tenets of Christianity, but the additions/omissions might.It is debatable whether the additions were made to support a tenet or a tenet was based on the "original" manuscript. This would make a good topic in itself. I will probably propose a thread when I get time to write a good OP.The Johannine Comma is a good example. The words in bold below are not in the older Greek manuscripts, but were in the later Latin Vulgate. This can impact the Doctrine of the Trinity and potentially the divinity of Jesus.Read these parallels from various version of our Bible today. 1 John 5:7Here are two examples: Which one has the authority and why?Ultimately people give authority to the version of the Bible they choose to use in their religion; but since Christianity is not a theocracy, the Bible does not have authority outside of a religion. Quite frankly, Christians choose what portions have "authority" over their daily lives. The authors of the NT weren't all necessarily presenting the same message.

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Apart from a contraversial single passage, beceause of copy descrepences, does not effect the revelation of the Triune God abundantly testified to elsewhere in the same book, let alone eslewhere in the New Testament and even entire Bible.

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I'm sure you don't, but the fact is that there are significant discrepancies between the older manuscripts and the new ones, which means there are discrepancies between some versions of the Bible that Christians use for their religion as you can see in the parallel link.So which version has the authority or is the authority really with the clergy? That's who people listen to. Most Christians haven't really read the Bible. They listen to sermons or Bible studies that pull verses from various authors to make a main point. The layperson isn't necessarily learning what point the author was actually making in the writing.The Christian Bible by itself has no authority. It's just a book. It doesn't give our clergy their authority. People do that.

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The Spirit o God in the People of God is needed to recognize the Word of God. The people of God recognized the Canon of the Word of God. They did not bestow authority upon books. They recognized authority in books.

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Nope the people bestowed the authority on the books they chose to be in the canon and destroyed some of the ones that didn't agree with their point of view. The debates lasted centuries before the canon was closed and changed many times. Some books didn't make it into the canon because they could be used by a variant Christian group.

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The believers must not let a dispute over variant copies of First John cause us to be distracted from holding FAST to the living Person of Christ Who is alive and available. And we must not allow the dispute to halt the growth of divine life within us. And we should not attempt to lay other foundations for another CHURCH according to those opinions.

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That shows me that the Bible isn't the authority. You've made the authority the divine spirit. That's one way to get away from the discrepancies in the writings. Religion evolves and changes. The same thing happened in the first few centuries of Christianity and even since the canon was closed and it will continue to evolve and change to suit the culture.The Bible has some good lessons that can be brought forward and used, but there is no authority within its pages to which we can be held accountable unwillingly.

According to Catholicism the Bible's authority rests on the authority of the Church, not the other way. Protestants on the other hand, abandoned tradition as an authority and turned to the Bible. Oddly enough, what the Protestants turn to as an authority was put together by the authority of the Catholic Church.So while the writings in the Bible are inspired by the needs of the people, the Bible only has authority that man bestows upon it.The Bible only has authority when it suits their purpose.

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The Savior said There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. --Gospel of Mary