Summations Only

I'm mostly just applying your logic to other contexts to show how poorly it works. For example, if fulfilled prophecy is proof of divine inerrancy, how do you know a prophecy was fulfilled without reference to external evidence? If the Bible said, "The prophet predicted that barren Elizabeth would bear a child, and it came to pass," how would you know the Bible was correct about this fulfilled prophecy without external evidence? There seem to be a great many holes in your logic, and while you doggedly continue to reply to messages in this thread you've made no effort to plug the holes. The evangelical interpretation of faith is different from the rest of Christianity. To rebut this statement you have to counter the explanations and references I provided earlier, not just restate your initial premise.That you've taken to merely repeating your positions is why I said before that you've gone preachy on us. There's no effort on your part anymore to discuss or persuade - you just keep repeating what you believe. You no longer seem like you're here to discuss evolution and creation but to testify for your faith. Is this another requirement for divine inerrancy? That a book actually be a collection of smaller books?That the Bible is so large is a weakness insofar as inerrancy is concerned. So large a book is bound to contain contradictions, and the Bible contains a great number. I know you say it contains no contradictions, but they're obvious to everyone. Your denials are mere testimonies of faith, not meaningful arguments. Just as the Bible describes many more characters and witnesses than just Jesus, the Quran includes many more characters and witnesses than just Mohammed.--Percy

Mohammed is THE sole author of the Koran. And the only other characters IN the Koran that I'm aware of are all from the Bible, and he made qujte a hash of them too, mixing up Miriam from the Old Testament with Mary from the New Testament and other silliness that ought to disqualify the whole miserable religion.The Bible doesn't rest on a minor case like Elizabeth's pregnancy, but a reasonable person ought to be able to accept such an account because of its internal reasonableness and the fact that it's within a greater account of other fulfilled prophecy, the pregnancy of Mary for major instance, which fulfills OLD Testament prophecy, which is EXTERNAL to the New Testament account.Oh brother. The fact that the Bible is a collection of books and not just A book shouldn't need so much discussion. Perhaps it would have been better if they had never been bound together for the sake of arguing with determined debunkers. But no, that wouldn't work either. A determined debunker is going to find ways to debunk no matter what.I found the definition of faith for "Christianity" at Wikipedia incomprehensible frankly. If you want me to respond to it you may need to try to make it less incomprehensible.

quote:

---

According to you, not according to orthodox theologians and believers.

---

So "orthodox theologians and believers" deny the truth. That really isn't helping your case.

quote:

---

The Bible doesn't rest on a minor case like Elizabeth's pregnancy, but a reasonable person ought to be able to accept such an account because of its internal reasonableness and the fact that it's within a greater account of other fulfilled prophecy, the pregnancy of Mary for major instance, which fulfills OLD Testament prophecy, which is EXTERNAL to the New Testament account.

---

Except that Mary's pregnancy DOESN'T fulfill Old Testament prophecy.The Gospel of Matthew says that it does, but it takes the prophecy completely out of context. It takes a whole lot of faith to claim that as a prophecy fulfillment.So thanks for providing a clear example where your "evidence" is based on faith, rather than vice versa.

That's probably what he actually said. Other translations quote that verse as (1 Tim 6:10):

quote:

---

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. - NASB

---

quote:

---

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. - NKJV

---

Most modern translations use wording of that type.HBD

Is it another requirement of divine inerrancy that a book's author(s) be varied and unknown? I'm sure there are characters in the Quran not present in the Bible, but is it a requirement that any non-Bible book not refer to characters from the Bible before it can be considered divinely inerrant? The Quran corrects many Biblical errors. Internal reasonableness? That Zacharias was visited by an angel who told him his prayers would be answered by God? That his prayers were answered? That angels exist? That Zacharias ever existed? And what happened to your requirement for many witnesses? That the Bible writers were just making things up is evidenced by their fulfillment of a mistranslated prophecy. The Quran corrects this error and makes it clear that God cannot have a son.And you still haven't explained how fulfilled prophecy means a book is inerrant and divinely authored. You brought it up. Things that can be shown true with evidence cannot be debunked. Failed debunking attempts lend confidence. The Bible does not stand up well to scrutiny because of it's many internal and external errors. It's a debunker's paradise.Every once in a while I guess it would make sense to again ask if you have any evidence for divine authorship and inerrancy for the Bible.--Percy

The point about Mohammed is that he's only one guy, why would you trust him over the dozens of Bible writers? Also the books of the Bible refer frequently to people who figure prominently in other books. It's all interwoven;. The Koran is just one guy who sat in a cave and came up with this whole religion he said was dictated to him by "Gabriel" and you'll put it on a par with the Biblical revelation. I find that stupefyingly senseless. Is he "known" more than the Bible writers who often refer to each other, which ought to go some way to establishing that they were real people. Mohammed's aunt did say he was demon-possessed, which he'd have to be if a phony "angel Gabriel" dictated to him. That's external to the Koran of course.I don't think there are any other people mentioned in the Koran except the Bible characters that Mohammed got all out of time and place.And you ask why all that should matter?There is no "mistranslated prophecy." All these accusation of the Bible are the inventions of stupid people who have no sense of history and lived in the last two centuries.And you don't see how fulfilled prophecy makes the Bible inerrant and divinely authored?Forgive me if I just roll my eyes and go take a nap.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But Mohamed flew to Heaven on a flying horse cmmon how could he not be the one true prophet if he had a flying horse.

There is actually external evidence for that miracle, a hoof print from his steed in a rock.

What points of Christianity are supported by dozens of writers?

The whole Plan of Redemption and its fulfillment.

While I'm glad that you're admitting that the Bible as written by many human authors I think that you're overstating your claim by rather a lot.How many writers make clear and unambiguous references to the Christian idea of this "plan of Redemption" ? Citing chapter and verse ?

What a snarky thing to say. I've never denied it. It's one of the Bible's special characteristics that it was written by many men over fifteen hundred years. Imagine that, PaulK finds fault in what I've written. Will wonders never cease. Oh I'm sure it won't be unambiguous by your standards since you specialize in finding conflicts and contradictions and ambiguities galore in the scripture. Anticipating that sort of reception, I'm not terribly motivated to do the chapter-and-verse thing for you, but we'll see tomorrow if I'm up to anything like that.Meanwhile, have you heard of The Scarlet Thread of Redemption? There's a little book on it available online and many references to it by others. That's what I'd be looking at to see if the references might be unambiguous enough. They run throughout the scripture though, and that's pretty impressive to me. Not to you I'm sure.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Why would you trust dozens of contradictory writers over one, right, true and divinely inspired writer?But you're missing the reason for introducing the Qur'an into the discussion. We're holding the Bible and the Qur'an to the same standards by evaluating their truth and error objectively, but you're doing something different, and we're trying to understand what that is.We want to know your process and criteria for concluding a book is the inerrant Word of God. You said fulfilled prophecy. Well, the Qur'an has fulfilled prophecy, and I provided an example. You claimed it was a corruption of a Bible prophecy, but you never supported this claim, but if a fulfilled prophecy doesn't count if an older book has a prior claim on the prophecy then the Bible is excluded for the same reason, for example, the story of Noah is based upon the older Epic of Gilgamesh.You also haven't explained why a book that contains fulfilled prophecy must be inerrant and of divine origin. How does one follow from the other? If someone didn't believe that red combined with yellow make orange, we could explain it to them in terms of how different colors are absorbed and reflected. In a similar manner, since we don't understand how inclusion of a tale of fulfilled prophecy in a book makes the entire book inerrant and of divine origin, you need to explain the chain of evidence and logic that makes this true. You'd be wrong. Try Idris, for starters. You used the term "stupefyingly senseless" in reference to the Qur'an earlier, but that phrase more appropriately applies to the above. Giving voice to your inner prejudices is the opposite of reasoned argument.By the way, the only way you could demonstrate whether it is the Bible or Mohammed who got all the characters wrong in terms of time and place is by using external evidence. Still think external evidence is unnecessary?--Percy

OK Faith, you've never claimed that God wrote the entire Bible. You've always admitted that the primary authors are all human. Right ?As for the rest, I think you can trust the audience to juge what is clear and unambiguous, but your choice of reference makes it rather clear. It's not that the Bible authors knew and wrote of the Christian "plan of redemption" it's all about interpreting the texts as referring or alluding to it, even though the such a reading rests on the assumption of Christian belief. In other words, it's just more "evidence" based on faith.