Which Bible is Inerrant?

I have read many claims that the Bible is inerrant. Believers acknowledge that flawed human authors were involved, but that because God guided the writing and the editing no mistakes made it into the final text.My question is, which version of the bible is supposed to be inherent?I don't mean King James vs. NIV, I mean Roman Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Judaic. As I understand it, there are texts included in the RC bible that are not in the Protestant bible(s). Similarly, the Christian OT is not exactly the same as the Jewish Torah. Does this mean that Protestants think the RC bible is flawed? I have not heard that claim on EVC...Are many of the world's Christians using a flawed Bible?CitizzzenThis message has been edited by AdminPhat, 05-04-2005 12:51 PM

Before considering this for promotion, can you search for all the threads on the various canon? Maybe one of them would answer your questions.

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Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

most of the christian (protestant/lutheran) bibles have an ot nearly identical to tge jewish tanakh, just arranged chronologically according to setting.

How about the RC? I seem to recall from a religion class that the story of Chanukah is not in the torah, but is in another text sacred to the RC church. My instructor, Rabbi Hirsch, made a point of saying that he was grateful to the church for preserving it...Citizzzen

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The message is ended, go in peace.

There are many different canons, many differing versions of what should and should not be considered a books within the Bible. These books are arranged differently in the various faiths and religious schisms, but remain pretty consistent.You can follow some of the differences by starting here. If, after you wander around there some you would like some information on other books and writings from the period, I'll be happy to point you towards other resources.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thank you for the resource, I am glad to be able to list specific book that different churches use.However, the lists of Canonized books was not my point. For believers in an inerrant bible, my question is, do they think the RC old testament has "errors" because they include more books? Do RC inerrant bible believers think the protestant bible contains errors of omission?Citizzzen

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You'll have to ask someone else.I know that the Bible is full of errors as do most Christians.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

OK,The KJV (and each other version for that matter), especially when read mathamatically (if you will), contains both transcriptional and translational errors. Yet I believe my KJV is precisely inerrant with the surreal truths it portrays to much of the English speaking population.At the cross, for example:
Matt. and Mark state Christ's last words as "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me"
Luke states: "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit"
John: "It is Finished"Also the cross' encription: "King of the Jews" is stated differently by each of the fab four.Resurrection and ascension events are also stated differently: e.g., Mark states Christ was "received" up, Luke "carried" up, John "ascended" up.But together they portray a total picture of what goes on when a Redeemer redeems sinners from sin. That picture is inerrant.Now a passionate redeeming portrait-painter knows that his inspired portrait is not a sum of the parts, rather it is an irreducible complexity, a gestalt, a collaboration of strokes, emotions, ideas, associations, and other metaphysical aspects, that cannot possibly be broken into mere empirical components.Many of God's transcriptional and/or translational utterances may appear erroneous while the excellent metaphysical product produced by them is indeed inerrant, KJV or otherwise.The question I ask you is: What ultimate truth per se do you perceive (or apperceive) is inerrant?If you deny the existence of redemptive events, than the Bible is just another book of contradictions (like macro-evolutionism). But, if you truly experience blessed redemptive events in your life, then, a conservative Bible may become inerrant for you.Don't get me wrong, I'm a sinner like the rest of you evos and evangies, probably the chiefest. But my Bible didn't become inerrant until "eating crow".Do any of you want to proudly declare you have not sinned? Inerrant are you? Who here does not require redemptive events, anyway? I surely require them!

i think it's in one of the macabees texts. i suspect the reasons for it's non-inclusion in the tanakh to be political. but i forget the details.anyhow, i think it was included in the septuagint. but i could be wrong on that too.

"...The KJV...contains both transcriptional and translational errors... Yet I believe my KJV is precisely inerrant with the surreal truths it portrays..."Ok, maybe we this is simply semantics:Inerrant - 1. Incapable of erring; infallible. 2. Containing no errors.Error - 1. An act, assertion, or belief that unintentionally deviates from what is correct, right, or true. 2. The condition of having incorrect or false knowledge. 3. The act or an instance of deviating from an accepted code of behavior. 4. A mistake.Clearly definition #1 of Inerrant, and definition #4, if not #'s 2 and 4, of error make it clear that inerrant means without errors, that is, mistakes. Yet in your first sentence you say that it does indeed contain errors.For you, the "truth" of the bible transcends these mistakes. That's understandable. However, the fact that the truth is more important than the mistakes does not mean the mistakes don't exist.For a lot of scriptural literalists, the Bible is indeed without error. Any and all apparent contradictions can be explained. I saw at least one post that speculated about multiple planes of existence, allowing God/Jesus to say different things to different people.I admire your ability to look past typos and find meaning. I am curious though, does your take on the bible containing errors also mean that you are open to accepting some portions, and not others, and.or are there sections that you see as parables, as opposed to literal stories. Say, A&E in the garden of Eden, or Noah and the Ark?Citizzzen

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The message is ended, go in peace.

yes, inERRant and ERRor tend to be mutually exclusive. why don't they teach root word skills in school anymore?anyways. that's why a lot of apologists do their gymnastics routines. once we allow for the fact that someone made a typo, that means the bible is no longer inerrant. it's no longer EXACLTY the product that god intended it to be. man had something to do with it, and that allows for all kinds of errors, many of which are much much more greivous in nature than a simple scribal mistake.and so to prevent that from happening, they often pervert the reading so far from the actual text that it's just silly. the people who claim to be literalists are not, because otherwise they'd have to deal with the fact that bible is literally wrong in many areas. and it literally contradicts itself in many others.me? i'm fine with the bible having errors. it's just a book, not my god. i think recognizing its inherent fallibility is a fundamental step along the way to truly understanding it. believe it or not, it actually helps to make sense of the book, and not in the dismissive "oh it's full of holes let's ignore it" kind of way.

(Late in responding)I appreciate your kind reply. Due to time constraints allow me to respond to you statement:"ability to look past typos and find meaning"Written words everywhere have various typos (methinks). With regard to origins, "typos" and/or "errors" abound in the imperfect medium of communication. An "apple" is different (for example) to every person no matter how it is described scientifically. There seems to me to be no absolute reality to an apple, i.e., what it really is. An apple's biochemical makeup is just one tiny aspect of the thing.Time would fail to describe an apple's existence. Perhaps the world could not contain the quantity of books required to describe an apple in every detail. Even then, I don't think I'd have the brains to understand it all.My personal Bible is analogous. I try to take the Bible to be what Christ stated (i.e., with regard to Noah, Adam, the garden, etc.), due to my extreme faith-bias(es) and hope(s) thereof.Peace

Philip,I enjoyed reading your replies. I believe I have a similar view on the Bible.Scripture is very complex and polyphonic, it contains testimonies and reflections of very many very different people. So, it is not at all possible that it would not contain factual inconsistencies. And it sure does contain them. Yet, it tells us that the Lord our God is one, that He is in charge of the universe, that He loves us, that He is redeeming us from the pit into which we are falling, and that He wants us to accept the Way in which He is doing the work of this redemption. To me, that is an inerrant statement. And I don't see any other statements in Scripture.May I ask (even though it's beyond this topic and this forum), what do you think about evolution, and about creationism?Thanks and my all best wishes,Richard

Well would the original writings be the one most "true"? When we talk about the old testament it is a very old book dating perhaps 4000 BC and written in Hebrew. Hebrew is a language where almost every word seem to have four different meanings. Seeing how the "modern" european bibles are interpretations of the hebrew versions and done in the middle age (and therefore translated in the light of what people knew then) it should be evident that all bibles are more or less incorrect.
Folling this reasoning you get that the parts of the bible that talks about stuff that where common knowledge in the middle age would be more correct, but any section describing something not know to the middle age would be very wrong.I my self would be very glad if i could read hebrew and thus read the original texts instead of the mad interpretations of various religions fanatics from the dark ages.