Importance of Innerrancy to Moderate Christians

It is my understanding that if the bible is not the inerrant word of God, then the tenets of the Judeo-Christian faiths have no base in Divinity. Now, I've met some who do not hold that the Bible must be inerrant for their faith. For moderate Christians, who do not believe in the inerrancy of the bible, what is the motivation for following faith?Edited by AdminPD, : No reason given.

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The conclusion seems misleading.As far as I can tell, nobody believes that the sermons of Billy Graham are inerrant, but many believe they are divinely inspired. An assumption of inerrancy is not a necessary prerequisite for there being a basis in divinity.

Can you explain how someone could come to beleive that the Bible is inerrant without following faith ? And what would the motivation be for that faith ?

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Can you explain how someone could come to believe that the Bible is inerrant without following faith ?

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no, without faith, the stories of the bible are untenable.

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And what would the motivation be for that faith ?

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taken out of context, that would be rewording my question.i'm not too sure what you're asking on a whole.

No, I'm not rewording your question, I'm reflecting it to show that your question isn't the issue you make it. You asked what was the motivation for the faith to beleive in Christianity without believing that the Bible is inerrant. I asked what would be the motivation for the faith to beleive that the Bible is inerrant.In short I view your question as a mistake. The belief in inerrancy makes no fundamental difference - I would suggest that the motivations in each case are similar. Arguably the belief in Biblical inerrancy requires more faith to gloss over the internal tensions and inconsistencies in the inerrancy doctrine.

a sermon is not really the same as a holy text. If the faith(religion) is based solely on what it says in a

Spot on, nvr. The idea that if one questions any part of the Bible or some orthodox interpretation of it means that the whole thing has to be tossed out was/is a trap designed by the very people who were doing/are doing the orthodox interpretation. It is saying, "You don't believe it the way we believe it so you don't believe it at all." It is a kind of power trip and an attempt to seize control of the conversation. We decide what God said so therefore we decide who is "in" and who is "out". In my mind, it is a heresy.From a practical sense, it should be obvious that the Bible cannot be inerrant. Even if one accepts that all of it was inspired by God (which is debatable in itself because that assumes no human intervention in what was scripture and what was not and it assumes that the inspired original writers made no mistakes), there were numerous times over the years for human misunderstanding to alter scripture as new translations were developed and "translations of translations" were written. Even someone who reads the scriptures in the "original" Greek or Hebrew is not getting an inerrant view because no one today can possibly have a full understanding of the "original". So unless every translator and every interpreter is as inspired by God as the original writers and the original writers made no human mistakes, there can be no inerrant Bible.

Which Bible? There are several Canons (lists of what is or is not in the Bible) and no one Universal Canon. Until you can identify what the Bible is, it is impossible to even ask if it is inerrant.Second, what is inerrant? Does that mean it is accuract as a guide to Faith? Or does that mean that it must be factually correct in terms of history and events? If it contains a parable, a fable told by Jesus to explain some point, do those events in the parable need to be factually correct? If not, then is there any reason that other tales such as the Flood could also be meant simply as a means of illustrating some underlying moral or lesson?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

i do agree that your question is misled.if one has faith enough to determine the bible to be inerrant, that must be preceded by faith enough to believe in the divine. inerrancy is a separate faith built on top of a faith in the divine....and a faith i do not possess.
i believe in the divine because i do not believe in the creativity of mankind. i do not think that humans are capable of inventing god on the scale that they have. in my opinion, all of our inventions are merely adjustments of things that we have seen. computers are merely simple brains. we have known that the brain transmits and translate electrons and such are our compuers.
this lack of faith in humanity demands a something to base our idea of god on. therefore, there must be a god. on top of this, i have many personal and unconvincing experiences that i feel support my idea of god. but, to imagine these are proof requires a prior belief. i do not believe in inerrancy, because the bible is nothing more than the recorded experiences of people who thought they knew god. if it is inerrant, my faith is not shaken, but i have not found it to be thus.am i entirely wrong in my perceptions? possibly, probably. does this matter? do i need a faith in human reporting (biblical inerrancy) to believe in god? no. i know full well how much people mangle the things they write down.the bible is a collection of books. many of those books are edited summaries of entire libraries of knowledge (specifically the old testament). the rest of it is poetry, daydreams, and faulty "eyewitness" material written amazingly long after the fact.what if the things the bible is wrong on are the parts i like? well i guess i'm shit out of luck. my beliefs do not change reality and i could be very, very far off from such. what if our idea of god is based on a really powerful king once upon a time and it all got blown way out of proportion slowly? well then i guess i'm wrong. but does that make my mind or my life somehow less valuable? no.based on the information at hand, it is foolish to throw out the whole thing. i have a novel that i really enjoyed reading. i picked it up by chance when my high school library was giving away books. i took home like 15 and this was one. it's about a girl named eugenie. she was the daughter of a cloth merchant in marseille. it's a fantastic story about how she fell in love with a young army officer named napoleone and was then spurned by him. she met napoleone afer his brother joseph walked her home from the jail where she visited her (father i think) to take him some clothing after he was jailed for some comment of other against the revolution or some thing... i forget. when she was getting ready to go to the jail, the book says she stuffed some handkercheifs into her dress to make her look older. she was 14 and flat chested. anyways. napoleone spurns her for a lady named josephine. then eugenie marries a man named bernadotte. after many years she became the queen of sweden.this sounds spectacular no? what if she didn't in fact stuff her bra? does that change the fact that she did in fact become the queen of sweden? does it change the fact that her sister married joseph, napoleon's brother? does it change history? no. it's a story written after the fact with some details added for embellishment.there have been a ton of floods in the world. if asia minor flooded and some guy managed to save his family and some stuff by getting on a boat, then great. does the fact that there has never been a worldwide flood change the idea that jesus said 'blessed are the peacemakers' and that it is a good idea to make peace? jamais.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

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No, I'm not rewording your question, I'm reflecting it to show that your question isn't the issue you make it. You asked what was the motivation for the faith to beleive in Christianity without believing that the Bible is inerrant. I asked what would be the motivation for the faith to beleive that the Bible is inerrant.

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In short I view your question as a mistake. The belief in inerrancy makes no fundamental difference - I would suggest that the motivations in each case are similar. Arguably the belief in Biblical inerrancy requires more faith to gloss over the internal tensions and inconsistencies in the inerrancy doctrine.

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... that leaves me worse off then it did when i started no?

If you mean that belief in Biblical inerrancy is "worse" in that sense than moderate or liberal Christianity then I agree.nEdited by PaulK, : Provide reason for edit here.

i think, somewhere in there was what i was looking for... yet, you're treating the bible as a "good read"? And, if you're doing this, then is there still faith in the resurrection?Being skeptical, the only way i could believe in the resurrection is if i also believed in the inerrant nature of the bible.if noah was just some dude on a boat, it's still an inspirational story, sure, but it would by no means be a base for faith.Edited by AlienInvader, : added noahness

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Which Bible? There are several Canons (lists of what is or is not in the Bible) and no one Universal Canon. Until you can identify what the Bible is, it is impossible to even ask if it is inerrant.

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whichever floats your boat basically, i'm asking about personal beliefs.

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Second, what is inerrant? Does that mean it is accuract as a guide to Faith? Or does that mean that it must be factually correct in terms of history and events? If it contains a parable, a fable told by Jesus to explain some point, do those events in the parable need to be factually correct? If not, then is there any reason that other tales such as the Flood could also be meant simply as a means of illustrating some underlying moral or lesson?

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i once heard that the resurrection is the core of the christian faith, without the resurrection... yeah. If the mundane parts are in error, wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that the more exceptional parts are also in error?

so, what kind of thing makes for the strength of belief that can legitimize a faulty text.