-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Is it possible that Christianity is true, yet the Bible contains errors?
- Thread starter vulcanlogician
- Start date
While Psalm 109 condemns the "wicked" for which the false prophet Paul, as "foremost sinner", is the foremost among the wicked (Mt 13:49), who as "tares", will be "gathered" and thrown into the furnace of fire, at the "end of the age" (Mt 13:30) and according to Rev 20:10, thrown into the lake of fire as well in the end. The unknown author of 2 Peter 3 claims that Peter is a brother of Paul. "My servant David" is not to be their shepherd until Israel has been "gathered from the nations" and returned to the land of Jacob/Israel (Ez 36:24 & Ez 37:16-25
The key of the house of David was given to Peter (Petras) and the ability to bind on earth (Matthew 16:19) (Isaiah 22:22). is claimed by the pope, who claims to be the heir of Peter, and the holder of that key. The heir, the pope, is like a peg, which to this day is in place, but "in that day", which is the "day of the LORD", that peg will "give way", and all (Christian church) who hang onto it will be "cut off". As for you quoting Acts, written by some unknown author, supposedly maybe Luke, supposedly maybe an associate of Paul, the false prophet, well, that is not a firm foundation. (Mt 7:27).
According to Ez 34:23, the LORD (YHWH) will judge the "flock" (Ez 34:22) but the fat I will destroy (Ez 34:16), and then I will "set up over them one shepherd, My servant David". The "fat" have already been judged by the time "David" is set up as the "one shepherd" and as the "prince" (prince being the son of the king). (Ez 34:23-24).
Dmartin2651
Member
I was on a Theology discussion list for twenty-five years. I have studied and debated with many biblical scholars, other religions, atheists, and so forth. I know a thing or two, one for certain is there is only one true living God He has no god beside him or out there anywhere. I have known Him even more so He has known me since He called me out of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son and even from before the foundation of the world. I have thanked Him for remembering me. All this nonsense you said proves you don’t understand the Bible regardless how much you’ve studied it. And your “timmy” mockery at the bottom wasn’t necessary either, quite childish. I’m fine if you don’t want to talk to me anymore.Incorrect. With thousands of gods out there the correct assumption is that they are all fake until they meet their burden of proof. And no, just because the epistle starts that way that does not mean that Paul wrote it. When I see this sort of ignorance it is rather obvious that you have never studied the Bible. Studying the Bible goes far beyond merely reading it. Most biblical scholars do not think that it was written by Paul:
"Although the pastorals are written under Paul's name, they are different from his other epistles, and since the early 19th century, scholars have increasingly seen them as the work of an unknown student of Paul's doctrine.[4][5] They do not address Paul's common themes, such as the believers' unity with Christ,[3] and they reflect a church hierarchy that is more organized and defined than the church was in Paul's time.[5]
Nonetheless, a number of scholars still defend the traditional authorship of 2 Timothy.[4][6][7]"
Second Epistle to Timothy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Some believe that, but it appears to be more due to tradition than anything else. And no, Paul did not have any children named Timmy. Unless he was getting some one the side. In 1 Corinthians 7 (that was written by Paul) he says that he was never married. His use of the phrase "My son" was in the same sense that a Catholic priest would use that phrase today.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You automatically lose all credibility when you say that you "know" that there is only one true and living God. That is just a mere belief. It is an attempt at dodging the burden of proof as well. Also it is rather clear that you did not make a serious study of the Bible. I am betting that you based your study only on your reading of the Bible. Did you read any studies of the history of the Bible? Do you know when the various books were probably written (probably not).
And the Timmy mockery came about because of your attitude. You needed to be knocked down a peg or two. I did not see you acknowledging your errors that were brought up, even the one that you really should have known was an error. Once again, Paul himself wrote that he never married. That makes any supposed children of his highly unlikely. He used figures of speech. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is terribly wrong to interpret them literally. You refute your own Bible when you are too literal in your interpretations.
I like the rational logic behind this post.
I am a convinced Christian who believes that a God exists and that Jesus was the promised Messiah and I believe in his resurrection. However, this belief is NOT dependent upon having inerrant textual witnesses.
Scholars of the early religious texts have known for years regarding mistakes in the subsequent and various textual witnesses. This does not mean that Jesus or the earliest textual witnesses of him and his resurrection are false, merely that there are mistakes in the transmission of ancient textual witnesses and in the translations of these witnesses and in our understanding of these texts.
It has been my experience that it is generally individuals who cannot read ancient texts that tend to claim they are inerrant since anyone who can read either the various versions of the ancient hebrew texts or the ancient greek texts are confronted with mistakes as they read.
I am unaware of a single important sacred ancient textual witness of any significant size that does not have mistakes and variants in the text. Whether insignificant or significant, all ancient Judeo-Christian texts of the Old and New Testament contain some errors.
This does not mean that the historical Jesus did not exist nor that he was not the Judeo-Christian Messiah, nor that he did not resurrect from the dead. If he was the Messiah and resurrected from the dead, this is a truth independent of whether there is a textual witness of it at all, or whether the textual witness of it is correct in all points or not.
Historical realities are, as @Left Coast pointed out, independent of the texts that attempt to describe historical realities.
Clear
ακσισιω
υρ ειτζφι
Last edited:
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
For years I have said that a claim that the Bible is inerrant refutes Christianity since it clear does have errors in it. Of course I should be a bit more careful. It only refutes the Christianity of those that claim the Bible is inerrant.
These days the knowledge is so freely available that there is no excuse to make the "inerrant" claim any longer. The Catholic Church recognized the problems with the claims of inerrancy a long long time ago. Though the statues in Catholic churches have creeped me out when I visited them, they at least can see how claiming that the Bible is inerrant does not help Christianity.
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
I am familiar with this interpretation. "Judas hanged himself, then fell off the rope hitting the ground causing his guts to burst out."
We can both agree, that (if that's roughly how things went down) there is no internal contradiction. The lawyers should be satisfied with that.
But it does present another issue. What was Luke (the author of Acts) talking about? Presumably Luke heard this account from a first-hand witness or witnessed it himself. There's an issue in either case.
Why did he leave out the part about him hanging himself? Act/Luke makes it sound like he was just walking along and then he fell over and, boom, his belly burst open. That's a very low-quality account if we're wanting factual credibility. It would be like me saying, yeah, the guy died. He fell, he hit his head on the sidewalk, then his brains splattered all over the place. But I neglected to mention that he jumped off a building beforehand.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic. Can you see the issue I have with interpreting scriptures this way? It seems a little forced.
In my twenties, my roommate and I were both hardcore Star Trek fans. On those occasions when presented with a contradiction in the canon, we'd often cobble together some ad hoc hypothesis that might explain away the contradiction. I can give actual examples if you want, but I'd rather not fill the thread with a bunch of Star Trek stuff.
The point is, we were inclined to do that. NOT to discover what "really happened," but so that our beloved sci fi setting could be a functional backdrop for the episodes we enjoyed weekly. I'm not saying that's what's going on with Luke and Matthew. I'm just saying it resembles it, and the possibility exists that something such is going on because it's human nature for us to do that with myths and stories that we're invested in.
Last edited:
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
Thank you for the welcome (I’m a sis. And I’ll let you know in discussing the Bible that I don’t speak from my own knowledge/opinion or any others’ either. I’m a hearer and doer of Jesus’ sayings just as many others in times past did speak from His knowledge it is an all new knowing and understanding the things of God. I don’t agree with men’s doctrines of inerrancy.. I know they are in their own thoughts and ways. I take it that is what you don’t want to dwell on in this post. It is good God’s own thoughts and ways continue to be above theirs. That He’s not likeminded with them in their doctrines.
Sorry for assuming, "sis." I usually don't, but I think the "martin" threw me off.
I see you've already gotten into some feisty debates!
It's interesting that you (seemingly) don't agree with inerrancy. I think we may agree that it is a "human doctrine," but feel free to elaborate if that is a mischaracterization of your view.
Even more interesting is the idea that God has his own set of (true) doctrines, and that humankind has another set of (presumably flawed) doctrines. That's a fascinating idea, and something I think I'd be more prone to hear from a Hindu rather than a Christian. Would you mind sharing more about that?
Last edited:
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
I don't think Christianity is true either.
But I don't like the logic of your argument.
People disagree over a multitude of things. And just because they disagree, that doesn't make them all wrong. People disagree over scientific and philosophical matters. And it can, at times, broach on a sort of "sectarianism." But that does not preclude any scientific theory or philosophical doctrine necessarily false, does it?
POST ONE OF TWO
While I am not bothered if the greek text uses ελακησεν to originally mean Judas "vomited out" the contents of his belly, or if it means Judas' intestines "spilled out", or if he had been hanged and his body was bloated and burst like dead whales do after they have been dead for some time; still the truth or error of the underlying principle that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that he resurrected remains unaffected.
However, having said this, and as a Christian who DOES believe that Jesus was the Christ and that he was resurrected, I do think there are reasons that we should not claim that the biblical text is "inerrant" and "perfect" when the versions of ancient sacred texts that have been imperfectly transmitted to us over the millenia are NOT inerrant and perfect. For examples :
1) REGARDING THE CLAIM THAT ONE OR MORE VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE ARE "PERFECT"
I have heard individual Judeo-Christians who make claims such as :
I think that when I was young, I was taught such logic and I probably made the same sorts of claims for the bible when I was young. However, as I gained knowledge and these simplistic claims were more obviously erroneous, I realized that part of the reason such claims exist is that they make us feel more sure about our faith when we lacked a firmer basis upon which to believe.
2) EXAGERATED CLAIMS TO BIBLICAL PERFECTION OFTEN CAUSE MORE HARM THAN THE GOOD THEY ARE INTENDED TO DO
Now, from the distance of a few more years and study, I am concerned that such claims are often counterproductive since agnostics and athiest at some point discover that such claims are erroneous and they repeat illogical and false claims as examples of poor logic and desperation among christianities who use them. For example, if we christians make the claim that “God would not allow His Word to be tainted by human error.”, then this claim will be used by agnostics to show that there is no God due to the fact that bibles ARE tainted with errors.
The agnostics and athiests are not stupid. They realize that scriptures have multiple errors of multiple types. They realize that many of the scriptures were not written in their current versions by the namesake placed on the text (e.g. moses could not have written his death).
For example : Religious scholars have argued publically for hundreds of years regarding who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews (whose author is yet unknown). It then it rings hollow when we then claim that we know that Hebrews was written by an apostle (or written by an unnamed christian who knew the apostles) when we already admit we do not know. In fact, all of our scriptures are pseudographical to the extent that we cannot prove the authorship of any of them but instead, we rely on strong tradition as to who wrote them.
We cannot claim they are correct as the many errors are becoming ever more well known. Claims to biblical “perfection” often appear to agnostics to be a method of "self-reassurance", a "pep talk" meant to reassure one’s self against the dark and unknown facts when real faith has less need for such psychological accoutrements
I think agnostics will have a softer heart and forgive the claims of the child when he makes such claims just as they understand the kind and good motives behind the “my dad can beat up your dad” bravado of a small child. However, that sort of pride is less justifiable when applied to making false claims to show “my religious theory can beat up your religious theory”.
In the face of christian pride and an attitude of christian superiority, The agnostic then feels quite justified in tearing false christian claims apart.
One harm is that the agnostic may then dismiss profound christian truths at the same time he justifiably dismisses the christian errors.
The other harm is that the Christian claim itself loses credibility in the eyes of critics when christians make unjustifiable and erroneous claims.
This damage caused by loss of credibility goes deep and has long-lasting effects.
I have wondered if the damage of erroneous claims might go as deep as that of hypocrisy (I think the damage DOES go as deep if the claim is an obvious lie)..
3) THE AUTHENTIC TRANSLATOR(S) WHO IS THE CREATOR OF A VERSION OF A BIBLE REALIZES THAT HIS TRANSLATION IS IMPERFECT
When any translator and printer creates a bible for mass consumption the translator typically uses one or more of the early texts as a basis for the bible he is creating. However, All of the large and early manuscripts of which we are aware, and which are used as source texts to create translations of bibles, all contain discrepancies and errors.
The translator is also dependent upon his imperfect skill and best guesses as to what the early text meant in order to create his bible. The bible the translator creates is a reflection of the source materials available to the translator, the translators ability to translate (which is not merely his linguistic skill, but his historical background and objectivity as well), and the ability of a modern language to express an ancient concept from a differing set of different modern linguistic symbolism (e.g. english words).
POST TWO OF TWO FOLLOWS
While I am not bothered if the greek text uses ελακησεν to originally mean Judas "vomited out" the contents of his belly, or if it means Judas' intestines "spilled out", or if he had been hanged and his body was bloated and burst like dead whales do after they have been dead for some time; still the truth or error of the underlying principle that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that he resurrected remains unaffected.
However, having said this, and as a Christian who DOES believe that Jesus was the Christ and that he was resurrected, I do think there are reasons that we should not claim that the biblical text is "inerrant" and "perfect" when the versions of ancient sacred texts that have been imperfectly transmitted to us over the millenia are NOT inerrant and perfect. For examples :
1) REGARDING THE CLAIM THAT ONE OR MORE VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE ARE "PERFECT"
I have heard individual Judeo-Christians who make claims such as :
| "God would not allow His Word to be tainted by human error." "He is.... everything and has kept His word pure and error free." |
I think that when I was young, I was taught such logic and I probably made the same sorts of claims for the bible when I was young. However, as I gained knowledge and these simplistic claims were more obviously erroneous, I realized that part of the reason such claims exist is that they make us feel more sure about our faith when we lacked a firmer basis upon which to believe.
2) EXAGERATED CLAIMS TO BIBLICAL PERFECTION OFTEN CAUSE MORE HARM THAN THE GOOD THEY ARE INTENDED TO DO
Now, from the distance of a few more years and study, I am concerned that such claims are often counterproductive since agnostics and athiest at some point discover that such claims are erroneous and they repeat illogical and false claims as examples of poor logic and desperation among christianities who use them. For example, if we christians make the claim that “God would not allow His Word to be tainted by human error.”, then this claim will be used by agnostics to show that there is no God due to the fact that bibles ARE tainted with errors.
The agnostics and athiests are not stupid. They realize that scriptures have multiple errors of multiple types. They realize that many of the scriptures were not written in their current versions by the namesake placed on the text (e.g. moses could not have written his death).
For example : Religious scholars have argued publically for hundreds of years regarding who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews (whose author is yet unknown). It then it rings hollow when we then claim that we know that Hebrews was written by an apostle (or written by an unnamed christian who knew the apostles) when we already admit we do not know. In fact, all of our scriptures are pseudographical to the extent that we cannot prove the authorship of any of them but instead, we rely on strong tradition as to who wrote them.
We cannot claim they are correct as the many errors are becoming ever more well known. Claims to biblical “perfection” often appear to agnostics to be a method of "self-reassurance", a "pep talk" meant to reassure one’s self against the dark and unknown facts when real faith has less need for such psychological accoutrements
I think agnostics will have a softer heart and forgive the claims of the child when he makes such claims just as they understand the kind and good motives behind the “my dad can beat up your dad” bravado of a small child. However, that sort of pride is less justifiable when applied to making false claims to show “my religious theory can beat up your religious theory”.
In the face of christian pride and an attitude of christian superiority, The agnostic then feels quite justified in tearing false christian claims apart.
One harm is that the agnostic may then dismiss profound christian truths at the same time he justifiably dismisses the christian errors.
The other harm is that the Christian claim itself loses credibility in the eyes of critics when christians make unjustifiable and erroneous claims.
This damage caused by loss of credibility goes deep and has long-lasting effects.
I have wondered if the damage of erroneous claims might go as deep as that of hypocrisy (I think the damage DOES go as deep if the claim is an obvious lie)..
3) THE AUTHENTIC TRANSLATOR(S) WHO IS THE CREATOR OF A VERSION OF A BIBLE REALIZES THAT HIS TRANSLATION IS IMPERFECT
When any translator and printer creates a bible for mass consumption the translator typically uses one or more of the early texts as a basis for the bible he is creating. However, All of the large and early manuscripts of which we are aware, and which are used as source texts to create translations of bibles, all contain discrepancies and errors.
The translator is also dependent upon his imperfect skill and best guesses as to what the early text meant in order to create his bible. The bible the translator creates is a reflection of the source materials available to the translator, the translators ability to translate (which is not merely his linguistic skill, but his historical background and objectivity as well), and the ability of a modern language to express an ancient concept from a differing set of different modern linguistic symbolism (e.g. english words).
POST TWO OF TWO FOLLOWS
Last edited:
POST TWO OF TWO
4) THE TRANSLATOR(S) / CREATOR(S) OF BIBLES HAVE EXPRESSED CONCERN REGARDING ATTITUDES OF THEISTS TOWARDS THE PRODUCT OF THEIR WORK
For the biblical translator and biblical linguist, the reverence and worship of their book as a thing of perfection may border on idol worship. It may feel as though individual revere a book as much as they do the God the book attempts to chronicle and describe. Translators who create the bibles are often uncomfortable with the “deification” of their creation (which they know has errors).
During a question-answer period of a BAR meeting at the smithsonian institution in washington (oct 27, 1990), James Sanders (who served on the committee that had just put out the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV) at that time spoke of how one could break the news to a relatively ignorant but good hearted group of christians, the “relativity” of translations so they could understand that the bible is a product of the TRANSLATOR(S), and is simply their best guess as to what the words meant.
James Sanders said ::
There is a concern among translators as to how much truth about translation the “lay christian” can “handle”. What happens if the translator meets the “biblical perfectionist” in person and says “"Hi. I am the creator of the bible you think is perfect. My Greek isn’t perfect and I didn’t have a lot of good manuscripts to compare so I think I did a fair job, but I know that I translated a few passages incorrectly. Still, it’s the best I could do, given my limitations.” What would a lay christian who is a biblical perfectionist DO with this sort of revelation? What happens when a flat earth suddenly is declared to be made round?
James is not merely a translator on the committee producing the NRSV, but he was THE translator called in to unroll Cave 11 Psalm Scroll; he edited it and he published it. (The point is that he is a well known and very capable and distinguished translator). He was president of the Society of Biblical Literature (which had a membership thousands of biblical scholars).
James said during this session regarding his own biblical translation (which many of us on this forum read as “the bible”) :
“Must we continue to pretend that only our group is right denominationally and others are not right, and it is just too bad about others? After all, the Revised English Bible and the NRSV have the Hebrew Ester in the so-called canonical section and the full Greek Ester – all of it in its full integrity – in the Apocrypha....The Hebrew text is still in the process of standardization, but I wonder if it would not be proper for there to be an effort afoot to provide our people with the differences all along. I have been told by some that that would just destroy the Bible because lay folk still want to think of the Bible as somehow “inerrant.” The truth of the matter is that all biblical passages have been community property almost from the first repetition. It may well be that if there should ever be the possibility of discussing the text of Isaiah with Isaiah, he might very well say, “But I did not say that.” It has nonetheless become community Isaiah property and he might just have to live with it.”.
James, a translator who “creates” scripture is describing the fact that though some of the biblical text is incorrect, and the translators know it is incorrect, still, the community of Christians have in their mind that what is written IS what Isaiah actually said and that the Prophet Isaiah will just have to live with it since individuals cannot cope with any corrections.
The bible translator Erasmus, in creating the FIRST printed greek bible discovered this human frailty much to his dismay. When Erasmus and the printer Stephen Froben, created their wildly popular 1516 bible, Erasmus tried to correct his New Testament by leaving out the Johannine comma (1 john 5:7-8), a spurious text which had made it’s way into the New Testament’s of the day.
However, the outcry of the traditionalists was such that he brought the text back into the third edition (though Erasmus spends considerable, (CONSIDERABLE), space in preamble of the 3rd edition, explaining why he added the text back into his bible, despite the spurious and erroneous nature of this text). Most translators realize the fickle nature of those who take the bible which is their creation, and endow it with properties it simply does not have, including “perfection”.
Doug Moo, one head editor/translator of the NIV Bible described the process of their committee as they created their bible. The committee discusses what they think the text is trying to say and come to a majority consensus (not all agree on all meanings) and then they put that meaning into the text of the bible they are creating. In 2007 they made some significant changes to their bible as they decided that the prior lines were not as correct as they could have been. If the creators of this Bible admit to errors and must change their text from time to time, it is evidence that imperfections exist, despite their best efforts in prior attempts.
A few years previously, MysticPhD gave a description that I thought was generally accurate and can be applied to the various iterations and various versions of bibles that have existed throughout the centuries :
MysticPhD in #9 (different thread) : “... The Bible is God-inspired recordings chronicling our species education and attempts to understand God. They foretold of the arrival of the Word of God Jesus Christ and provided validation for Him. That makes them far more than stories . . . but it does NOT make them the Word of God nor does it make them inerrant.
Errors in transmissions in ancient documents (even sacred documents) does not negate nor lessen the import of revelation as a principle of confirmation to a specific individual that God exists, or that Jesus is the Messiah, or any other important, salvational principle. Barring the fakers and the mentally unstable, authentic Revelation and spiritual confirmation has always been the strongest confirmation of spiritual truths. I do not think texts will ever replace personal revelation.
Clear
νεσετζω
υρ εισινε και εινεφι
4) THE TRANSLATOR(S) / CREATOR(S) OF BIBLES HAVE EXPRESSED CONCERN REGARDING ATTITUDES OF THEISTS TOWARDS THE PRODUCT OF THEIR WORK
For the biblical translator and biblical linguist, the reverence and worship of their book as a thing of perfection may border on idol worship. It may feel as though individual revere a book as much as they do the God the book attempts to chronicle and describe. Translators who create the bibles are often uncomfortable with the “deification” of their creation (which they know has errors).
During a question-answer period of a BAR meeting at the smithsonian institution in washington (oct 27, 1990), James Sanders (who served on the committee that had just put out the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV) at that time spoke of how one could break the news to a relatively ignorant but good hearted group of christians, the “relativity” of translations so they could understand that the bible is a product of the TRANSLATOR(S), and is simply their best guess as to what the words meant.
James Sanders said ::
| “I have dreamt of a Bible with translations of both versions into english. I wonder if lay folk would accept a Bible where there are doublets of this sort. .... There might be one translation on the top half of the page and the other on the bottom half of the page. I think that it is time for us to stop fooling the people, making them think that there is just one Bible and that our bible committee got closer to it than their committee did.” |
There is a concern among translators as to how much truth about translation the “lay christian” can “handle”. What happens if the translator meets the “biblical perfectionist” in person and says “"Hi. I am the creator of the bible you think is perfect. My Greek isn’t perfect and I didn’t have a lot of good manuscripts to compare so I think I did a fair job, but I know that I translated a few passages incorrectly. Still, it’s the best I could do, given my limitations.” What would a lay christian who is a biblical perfectionist DO with this sort of revelation? What happens when a flat earth suddenly is declared to be made round?
James is not merely a translator on the committee producing the NRSV, but he was THE translator called in to unroll Cave 11 Psalm Scroll; he edited it and he published it. (The point is that he is a well known and very capable and distinguished translator). He was president of the Society of Biblical Literature (which had a membership thousands of biblical scholars).
James said during this session regarding his own biblical translation (which many of us on this forum read as “the bible”) :
“Must we continue to pretend that only our group is right denominationally and others are not right, and it is just too bad about others? After all, the Revised English Bible and the NRSV have the Hebrew Ester in the so-called canonical section and the full Greek Ester – all of it in its full integrity – in the Apocrypha....The Hebrew text is still in the process of standardization, but I wonder if it would not be proper for there to be an effort afoot to provide our people with the differences all along. I have been told by some that that would just destroy the Bible because lay folk still want to think of the Bible as somehow “inerrant.” The truth of the matter is that all biblical passages have been community property almost from the first repetition. It may well be that if there should ever be the possibility of discussing the text of Isaiah with Isaiah, he might very well say, “But I did not say that.” It has nonetheless become community Isaiah property and he might just have to live with it.”.
James, a translator who “creates” scripture is describing the fact that though some of the biblical text is incorrect, and the translators know it is incorrect, still, the community of Christians have in their mind that what is written IS what Isaiah actually said and that the Prophet Isaiah will just have to live with it since individuals cannot cope with any corrections.
The bible translator Erasmus, in creating the FIRST printed greek bible discovered this human frailty much to his dismay. When Erasmus and the printer Stephen Froben, created their wildly popular 1516 bible, Erasmus tried to correct his New Testament by leaving out the Johannine comma (1 john 5:7-8), a spurious text which had made it’s way into the New Testament’s of the day.
However, the outcry of the traditionalists was such that he brought the text back into the third edition (though Erasmus spends considerable, (CONSIDERABLE), space in preamble of the 3rd edition, explaining why he added the text back into his bible, despite the spurious and erroneous nature of this text). Most translators realize the fickle nature of those who take the bible which is their creation, and endow it with properties it simply does not have, including “perfection”.
Doug Moo, one head editor/translator of the NIV Bible described the process of their committee as they created their bible. The committee discusses what they think the text is trying to say and come to a majority consensus (not all agree on all meanings) and then they put that meaning into the text of the bible they are creating. In 2007 they made some significant changes to their bible as they decided that the prior lines were not as correct as they could have been. If the creators of this Bible admit to errors and must change their text from time to time, it is evidence that imperfections exist, despite their best efforts in prior attempts.
A few years previously, MysticPhD gave a description that I thought was generally accurate and can be applied to the various iterations and various versions of bibles that have existed throughout the centuries :
MysticPhD in #9 (different thread) : “... The Bible is God-inspired recordings chronicling our species education and attempts to understand God. They foretold of the arrival of the Word of God Jesus Christ and provided validation for Him. That makes them far more than stories . . . but it does NOT make them the Word of God nor does it make them inerrant.
| I believe the poster @Mystic’s description is generally accurate and can be applied to the various iterations and various versions of bibles that have existed throughout the centuries. |
Errors in transmissions in ancient documents (even sacred documents) does not negate nor lessen the import of revelation as a principle of confirmation to a specific individual that God exists, or that Jesus is the Messiah, or any other important, salvational principle. Barring the fakers and the mentally unstable, authentic Revelation and spiritual confirmation has always been the strongest confirmation of spiritual truths. I do not think texts will ever replace personal revelation.
Clear
νεσετζω
υρ εισινε και εινεφι
Last edited:
Colt
Well-Known Member
The Bible books are as humanly imperfect as we should expect.
In Yeshua's parable explanation of the "kingdom of heaven" (Mt 13:11-51), the "kingdom" is comparable to the farmer (son of man) sowing wheat on his land, and in the night, an "enemy"/"devil" comes and plants tare seeds next to the good seed. Keep in mind that tare plants, which look like wheat plants, produce no good fruit. The "farmer"(son of man) does not let his laborers "gather out" the tares until the "end of the age", less the wheat plants are damaged, at which time the tares are "first" gathered up and cast into the furnace of fire, and then the wheat is gathered into the "barn" (land of Jacob/kingdom of God) (Ezekiel 37). Therefore, the NT is a combination of the "good seed" planted by the "son of man", alongside the tare/bad seed planted by the "devil"/"enemy". Per Matthew 7:13-15, the "many" follow the bad message, the tare seed, the "message" of the "false prophets", and "few" find the narrow path to life.
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
True as that may be, it says nothing about whether Biblical inerrancy is true or not. I am actually fresh off a reading of Matthew (last weekend) where I paid special attention to ch. 5-7.
"Narrow is the gate" may not at all refer to a narrowness of the mind (a very popular interpretation).
It may refer to what it is like to be a righteous person (ie. someone who tries to do the right thing) and how easy it is to "stumble off the path" and do the wrong thing. It's hard doing the right thing. And most people fail at the effort. But a few succeed!
That's what I think the verse is saying. And I'm not trying to posit that everyone should agree with me. Quite the opposite. I'm just saying that's what I hear when I read it.
But you hear something about doctrine it seems. Especially concerning the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. What do you hear?
The "biblical inerrancy" tracks back to a very errant Athanasius and his 367 A.D. NT canon. It also tracks back to the bulwark of the NT, the message (Mt 13:25 & 39) of the false prophet Paul and his comrades, which constitutes around 2/3 of the NT. The problem isn't so much "inerrancy", but substitutions, additions and subtractions, apart from adding the "message" of the "enemy"/"devil". "Narrow" means that you must keep the Commandments to "enter into life" (Mt 19:17), and you must be more righteous than the 10 Commandments to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:20). If you are born of the seed (Word) of God, you cannot sin (1 John 3:9). If you are born of the "devil" you will sin. To be born again, one has to die to oneself. The leader of the "Christian" church is the false prophet Paul, who calls himself the foremost sinner, who leads the ("many") sinners to "destruction" and "death". (Mt 7:12-25) It is one thing to sin and then repent (change course), but it is another to keep on sinning.
The "one shepherd" is put over the sheep after the LORD has judged between the sheep and the goats (Ez 34:18-20) and destroyed the "fat" and the "strong" (Ez 34:16). The "prophecy" is "against" all "the shepherds of Israel" (Ez 34:2). The judgment starts with the elders. At the end of the judging by the LORD, David is put in charge (Ez 37:24).
The "key" was given to Peter (Mt 16) and now the pope claims to be Peter's heir and claims to hold it. The pope now claims to open and shut.
David was made the prince, and the one shepherd, after the "fat" had been "destroyed" (Ez 34:16-23).
I think there are several reasons why it may be so:
1) He didn't hear/know that.
2) The part has been lost from his writings.
3) He thought it was not necessary to mention it....
I don't think it is interpreting any more than when people interpret that there is a contradiction. The scriptures leaves the actual cause of death open. And if we go only by what we can know from the Bible, we can't say it is contradictory in this case, because it is possible that things went as both Gospels tell. Both of them have only small part of everything that happened and they are not exclusionary.
I am sure it would be interesting, but maybe it would be better to try to remain closer to the topic.
Where do the other say Jesus didn't die?