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Author | Topic: Is the Bible the inerrant word of God? Or is it the words of men? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Faith writes: Sigh. I said it would be nice if there was external evidence but every time someone brings up Josephus or Tacitus they are told it doesn't count. My rejoinder is that it really isn't necessary anyway because the Bible is a collection of separate documents. And now you are making what kind of hash out of this? 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.
My definition of faith comes down the Protestant lineage, which IS Christianity like it or not. 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.
The Bible is not "a book," it's a whole library of books. 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.
The whole Bible is INTENDED as evidence and it IS evidence. With multiple witnesses yet, not the one lone character Mohammed or that sort of thing. 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
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1697 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17914 Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
quote: So "orthodox theologians and believers" deny the truth. That really isn't helping your case.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17914 Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
quote: 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.
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herebedragons Member (Idle past 1110 days) Posts: 1517 From: Michigan Joined: |
Paul was apparently indulging in a bit of hyperbole. What he should have said, if he intended to be taken literally, was that the love of money is the root of quite a lot of evil. That's probably what he actually said. Other translations quote that verse as (1 Tim 6:10):
quote: quote: Most modern translations use wording of that type. HBDWhoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for... I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca "Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem. Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Faith writes: Mohammed is THE sole author of the Koran. Is it another requirement of divine inerrancy that a book's author(s) be varied and unknown?
And the only other characters IN the Koran that I'm aware of are all from the Bible,... 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?
...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 Quran corrects many Biblical errors.
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... 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?
... 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. 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.
Oh brother. The fact that the Bible is a collection of books and not just A book shouldn't need so much discussion. You brought it up.
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. 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
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1697 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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.
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frako Member Posts: 2932 From: slovenija Joined: |
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.
Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.
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jar Member (Idle past 92 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
There is actually external evidence for that miracle, a hoof print from his steed in a rock.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
The point about Mohammed is that he's only one guy, why would you trust him over the dozens of Bible writers? What points of Christianity are supported by dozens of writers?Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1697 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The whole Plan of Redemption and its fulfillment.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17914 Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
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 ?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1697 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
While I'm glad that you're admitting that the Bible as written by many human authors 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.
I think that you're overstating your claim by rather a lot. Imagine that, PaulK finds fault in what I've written. Will wonders never cease.
How many writers make clear and unambiguous references to the Christian idea of this "plan of Redemption" ? Citing chapter and verse ? 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.
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Percy Member Posts: 22941 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Faith writes: The point about Mohammed is that he's only one guy, why would you trust him over the dozens of Bible writers? 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.
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. You'd be wrong. Try Idris, for starters.
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. 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
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PaulK Member Posts: 17914 Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
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.
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