Proving God by proving the Bible

[RBD]

Since the God of the Bible says He cannot be proven nor found apart from His words, such as by physical sight, signs, philosophy, science, etc... then it is not possible to given any proof of the true God in heaven, apart from His words. Indeed, He says such seeking of proof is unbeliefe, vain, and decietful.

1Co 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Luk 16:31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.


Therefore, the only way to prove God is, and He is the God of the Bible, is to prove the Bible is true in all things. So, without sounding 'preachy' by only using God's words to prove Himself, then we can prove the Bible must be His proof by proving there is no contradiction between any of His words.

Proof that there is a God in heaven, and He is the Lord God of the Bible, is by the inerrancy of His words written by so many men, so many generations apart.

I propose to prove the God of the Bible is true, but proving there is no contradiction of His words of doctrine, and prophecy. If anyone believes there is a contradction, then let's see it. Otherwise, the Bible is perfectly true as written: The Creator of heaven and earth, and all creatures in heaven and on earth, is the Lord God of the Bible.

[RBD]

The Bible is physical evidence in pen and paper, of an Author claiming to be God Almighty and Creator.

Evidence of a claim is not the same thing as proof.

The evidence that it is inerrant proves that He can be believed.

The logical fallacy here is that you haven’t proven inerrancy.

By inerrancy, we must agree all the words can be true as written, which includes the Author's declarations about Himself.

Same point applies.

Inerrancy does not prove anything must be true, nor that anyone must believe it as true. Inerrancy proves the words can be true. The challenge to prove errancy is only against active disbelievers, that declare the words cannot be believed as true, due to supposed errancy.

Rather than by faith alone, the defence of the Bible therefore becomes intelligent reading, that counters unintelligent accusations against the Book, as well as against those choosing to believe it.

Bible inerrancy was proven to me by reading it objectively with the same standard of literary analysis and critique, that I apply to any book on earth.

It doesn’t follow that one person’s literary standards proves anything about any book. I could easily substitute ‘errancy’ for ‘inerrancy’ in the quoted sentence and make the same claim about the Bible.

There is no private literary standard pertaining to error and contradiction. Whether in math or literature, anyone postulating or writing that A equals B, and B does not equal A, is proven wrong by their own impossible theory and foolish words.

Ex: Nowhere in the Bible is Gen 1:1 contradicted by saying elsewhere, that God did not create the heaven and the earth, as the atheists say, or that the Gods created the heaven and the earth, as the pagans say.

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions. No effrot to prove error by the above standard test, has ever been found nor given. Therefore, it simply proves that it is one unified Book of perfect agreement between all it's words. That does not in itself prove they are all true, nor does that in itself force anyone to believe them as true. It does however rightly disprove anyone irrationally declaring, that all or none of the Book can possibly be true, and anyone doing so must be blindly or intentionally unintelligent.

For example, Genesis mentions God creating the Sun and Moon as ‘two lights in the sky’. When I apply my standards of precision, clarity and scientific fact, the Bible comes up short.

Now you join in the historical effort to claim a contradictive error in the Bible, so let's take a look:

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

You'll have to explain your problem here.

Are you saying the sun and moon are not two lights shining greater than the stars on earth, one at night, and the other in the day? Or, that both great lights are not shining in the sky at the same time, as though the Bible says they are? Or, that there are times when neither great light is shining in the sky, as though the Bible says they always are? Or, there is a scientific problem with the sun and moon created in relation to the stars?

[Diagoras]

Inerrancy does not prove anything must be true, nor that anyone must believe it as true.

Agreed.

Inerrancy proves the words can be true.

But not that they must be true. Therefore leaving open the possibility of them being false.

The challenge to prove errancy is only against active disbelievers, that declare the words cannot be believed as true, due to supposed errancy.

<bolding mine>

No-one is able to prove something ‘cannot be believed’. No matter how strong the evidence against it.

Ex: Nowhere in the Bible is Gen 1:1 contradicted by saying elsewhere, that God did not create the heaven and the earth, as the atheists say, or that the Gods created the heaven and the earth, as the pagans say.

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions.

It’s possible to be self-consistent but still incorrect.

Now you join in the historical effort to claim a contradictive error in the Bible, so let's take a look:

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights;
<snip>

You'll have to explain your problem here.

Very simple. The moon is not a ‘light’. If it was, we wouldn’t have a ‘new moon’ every month. This is not an error of self-contradiction though, it’s simply factually wrong.

[benchwarmer]

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions.

I suppose if you don't actually read the whole thing you might be able to pretend that. We have hashed multiple contradictions on this site in the past. A simple Google search will give you an idea just how many there are.

Only torturing the text to pretend it doesn't say what it actually says (and different sects of believers will torture the text differently) so that it lines up with their preferred beliefs will arrive at 'no self contradictions'.

You won't convince anyone that isn't already a die hard believer there are no contradictions. You can't even finish reading Genesis without running into a bunch of them. i.e. simply compare the two different creation narratives that were lifted from different tales and placed into Genesis. What a bad editing job that was. Now inerrantists are stuck with it. Good luck to them.

[RBD]

[Replying to RBD in post #66]

Firstly, the whole argument is to claim the Hebrew word for dig cannot be for pierced; however, that does not prevent referring to the act elsewhere as piercing.

"In any case, this rendering contains two fallacies. First, assuming that the root of this Hebrew word is krh, "to dig," then the function of the 'aleph in the word ka-'ari is inexplicable since it is not part of the root. Karah consists only of the Hebrew letters kaph, resh, and he, whereas the word in the Hebrew text, ka-'ari, consists of kaph, 'aleph, resh, and yod. Second, the verb krh, "to dig," does not have the meaning "to pierce." Karah generally refers to the digging of the soil, and is never applied in the Scriptures to the piercing of the flesh (cf. Genesis 26:25; Exodus 21:33; Numbers 21:18; Jeremiah 18:20, 22; Psalms 7:16, 57:7). There are a number of words that are used in Hebrew for piercing the body: rats'a, "to pierce," "to bore with an awl" (Exodus 21:6); dakar, "to pierce" (Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 13:15); nakar, "to pierce," "to bore," "to perforate" (2 Kings 18:21). This last word is used in a very significant sense in the last verse cited: "It [the reed] will go into his hand and pierce it." Any of these words would be far better suited for use in this passage than one that is generally used to denote digging the soil."
https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/ar ... ike-a-lion

The argument is not about correct translation in Ps 22. 'Digging into' the hands and feet does not change the context. Ps 22 remains perfectly suited to a crucifixion, as well as making it impossible to apply to David's travails alone. The error of confining Ps 22 to David alone, makes him guilty of exaggerated lies.

A grammatical contradiction in the Book, rather than simple bad translation in one place, would be quoting Ps 22:16 eslewhere, as the fulfillment of prophecy pertaining to piercing. In that case, the word written in Ps 22 would not only be mistranslated, but also misquoted elsewhere. The Book never quotes Ps 22:16 elsewhere to fulfill prophecy by saying, "As the scripture saith, They pierced my hands and my feet."

The only quote for the prophecy of piercing is in John 19 from Zech 12:

Zec 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced...

Jhn 19:37 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.

Zech 12 is stated for prophecy, and piercing is an exact translation, and John 19 quotes accordingly for Jesus Christ's crucifixion.

the interpreter does what he accuses others, by taking the verse out of context. If David is only speaking of his own travails, then when did he and his enemies see all his bones?

Psa 22:17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

And when was David's garment parted by them and his vesture cast by lots? Afterall, David defeated his enemies, while Jesus was nailed to a cross by his enemies.

With this so-called Jewish scholar, as with many active disbelievers in any words of the Book, he shows his blindness to his own manifest incompetence.

"The metaphorical terminology used by the psalmist to express in physical terms his mental anguish is comparable to similar usage found in Jeremiah 23:9. There the prophet exclaims: 'My heart within me is broken, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome.'"
(ibid.)

Another manner of corrupting a book of literary fact and poetry, is to purposely make the literal into poetry, so as to change it into only a book of poetry.

Ps 22 is poetic mixed with literal fact. Jerem 23 must all be poetic, becsause it is written as allegory, and none of it can be literally true. Bones can be exposed, but not shaken. And no one lives through a heart broken in pieces.

And so, once again there is no quoted contradiction by the words of the Book themselves, but only another effort of personal interpretation to make one up. An interpretation contradicts the Book, not the Book itself.

And as we see in the end, it is such a forced interrpetation, that it requires changing almost an entire chapter from Ps 22:6-18 into poetry alone. It's such obvious ditch digging into literary malfeasance, that any cheder student would know better than to do, and try to pass it off as factual literary analysis and critique. I.e. The dishonest scholar seeking error where there is none, makes himself analytically dumber than any first year student.

Job 5:13He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.


He that begins to sow confusion, must dig a deep ditch, the longer literary analyisis is made unintelligible. Or, Oh what tangles webes we weave...

Psa 7:15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.

I might add that the account of the soldiers dividing Jesus's garments was quite possibly added to provide an excuse for linking it back to the psalm.

Of course, which is nothing new:

Mat 28:12 And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept…So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

When all else fails just declare the book is made up anyway, and the writers are all liars. Character assassination is a pit dug for false arguments.

However, in this case, the problem presented by allegorizing all of Ps 22, in order not to make the writer an exaggerated liar, is that there remains no need to accuse other writers of lying. If someone really believes that Ps 22 is just poetry and has no historical nor prophetic fact to it, then what does it matter if Jesus' bones were exposed by Roman scourging, and his garment was parted by Roman soldiers?

The very act of trying to make the curcifixion record a lie, shows a literary animus, that betrays any faith in one's own interpretive intent. It bails from the argument itself.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to RBD in post #74]

A grammatical contradiction in the Book, rather than simple bad translation in one place, would be quoting Ps 22:16 eslewhere, as the fulfillment of prophecy pertaining to piercing. In that case, the word written in Ps 22 would not only be mistranslated, but also misquoted elsewhere.

The Masoretic text is misquoted by Christian translators.

The only quote for the prophecy of piercing is in John 19 from Zech 12:

Zec 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced...

Jhn 19:37 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.

Zech 12 is stated for prophecy, and piercing is an exact translation, and John 19 quotes accordingly for Jesus Christ's crucifixion.

"Christian commentators, in their confusion, equate the "Me" with the "him" of verse 10 and refer both to Jesus. Grammatically, the "Me" and the "him" cannot refer to the same individual. The only admissible interpretation is, as stated above, that the Gentile nations shall look to God, whom they have attacked by the persecution, death, and general suffering they inflicted on the nation of Israel ("him"), whose dead will be mourned by the surviving Jewish people. The rabbis of the Talmud saw this suffering personified in the leader of the people, the warrior Messiah, the son of Joseph, who will be slain at this time (B.T. Sukkah 52a). The entire nation's dead will be mourned, but the mourning over the death of the warrior Messiah symbolizes the collective grief as the people mourn for the fallen of Israel. The author of the Gospel of John realized the untenability of the claim that Zechariah's prophecy referred to Jesus. John, perplexed by Zechariah's prophecy, changed the wording of verse 10 to make it conform to his belief. Thus, he wrote: "They shall look upon him [not "Me" as in the Hebrew text] whom they have pierced" (John 19:37). Emending a text may be a convenient way of demonstrating one's theological beliefs, but has nothing to do with biblical authenticity."
https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/ar ... ariah-1210


“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves. (Zechariah 10-14)

Since all the families of Jerusalem do not mourn for Jesus when he is crucified, his crucifixion cannot be a fulfillment of this prophecy.

[RBD]

Inerrancy does not prove anything must be true, nor that anyone must believe it as true.

Agreed.

Inerrancy proves the words can be true.

But not that they must be true. Therefore leaving open the possibility of them being false.

Only if they are all false. With inerrancy we must conclude the book is all true or all false. All that is needed is one proveable falsehood for all the dominoes to fall.

The argument is removed from faith alone, to a rational conclusion study.

2Ti 2:15Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

This is common prinicple literary analysis, not only to know what we are talking about, but also to show intelligently why we believe it. By virture of writing the Book and calling Himself the LORD God Almighty, He challenges all readers to show fault and prove Him wrong.

Whether anyone chooses to believe the things He says is the power of freewill, but the words themselves deserve to be acknowledged as a rational reason for believing them. While the inerrancy stands, the only irrational ones, are those who declare anyone choosing to believe them, must be blind or stupid.

The challenge to prove errancy is only against active disbelievers, that declare the words cannot be believed as true, due to supposed errancy.

<bolding mine>

No-one is able to prove something ‘cannot be believed’. No matter how strong the evidence against it.

That's not true. In scientific research, if something is factually disproven, then it must not be believed as true. That's how once argued and believed theorems are dismissed by later evidence. The truth is that no person on earth can be made to believe something, nor forbidden to believe something. Anyone can choose to believe a lie in the face of irrefutable truth, or the truth surrounded by lies.

Ex: Nowhere in the Bible is Gen 1:1 contradicted by saying elsewhere, that God did not create the heaven and the earth, as the atheists say, or that the Gods created the heaven and the earth, as the pagans say.

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions.

It’s possible to be self-consistent but still incorrect.

Granted. But all or nothing is the necessary conclusion of inerrancy. Those who choose to believe only in part, and reject what they don't personal like, are called the lukewarm by Jesus. He says it's better to be wholehearted about something, whether for the good or the bad, than a half-hearted hypocrite.

Now you join in the historical effort to claim a contradictive error in the Bible, so let's take a look:

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights;
<snip>

You'll have to explain your problem here.

Very simple. The moon is not a ‘light’. If it was, we wouldn’t have a ‘new moon’ every month. This is not an error of self-contradiction though, it’s simply factually wrong.

Once again, this is an interpretion of the words, not any quote nor statement made by them. The Book does not ever say the Moon is it's own light, or shines it. Any argument about the source of light is an unnecessary distinction, that would say a lamp ought never be called a light, because it's source is the fire within, not the lamp itself. Or, that the sunrise and rosy-fingered dawn must never be spoken of, since it's not technically true.

A luminary is simply a light than can be seen, which either produces or provides light. The sun produces light by day, and the moon provides light by night, which is what is commonly understood by nature itself, even if astronomers want to argue otherwise. In Gen 1, there is no attempt to make an argumental difference between the light source, but only to declare the glory of the Author, that created both great lights to luminate the earth.

The Bible says God made the moon a luminary body specifically to be seen on earth, with enough light to walk and make love in. He did not create it a great light to be seen by Maritians on Mars, because it's not a luminary for any other planet than Earth.

[Diagoras]

With inerrancy we must conclude the book is all true or all false. All that is needed is one proveable falsehood for all the dominoes to fall.

Does this apply to every version of the Bible? Or only the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts? What about the Ethiopean Orthodox Bible, which has 81 books in total?

By virture (sic) of writing the Book and calling Himself the LORD God Almighty, He challenges all readers to show fault and prove Him wrong.

A logical fallacy here. We can’t assume God wrote the Bible.

… the words themselves deserve to be acknowledged as a rational reason for believing them.

In your opinion.

While the inerrancy stands, the only irrational ones, are those who declare anyone choosing to believe them, must be blind or stupid.

Another fallacy here: ad hominem.

No-one is able to prove something ‘cannot be believed’. No matter how strong the evidence against it.

That's not true. In scientific research, if something is factually disproven, then it must not be believed as true. That's how once argued and believed theorems are dismissed by later evidence. The truth is that no person on earth can be made to believe something, nor forbidden to believe something. Anyone can choose to believe a lie in the face of irrefutable truth, or the truth surrounded by lies.

<bolding mine>

My reading of your response here, especially the bolded part, is that we agree. If you want to believe something despite irrefutable evidence and logic to the contrary, I can’t ‘prove’ that it can’t be believed.

Those who choose to believe only in part, and reject what they don't personal like, are called the lukewarm by Jesus. He says it's better to be wholehearted about something, whether for the good or the bad, than a half-hearted hypocrite.

Good for him. It’s only your (his) opinion, though.

Re: moon’s ‘light’:

Once again, this is an interpretion of the words, not any quote nor statement made by them. The Book does not ever say the Moon is it's own light, or shines it. Any argument about the source of light is an unnecessary distinction,

<bolding mine>

A reminder: the point about the moon was to provide an example of standards for literary analysis. Apologists frequently dodge biblical inaccuracies, errors and contradictions by falling back on ‘interpretation’. If I read any book that purports to describe facts, I don’t expect to find some of them needing to be taken literally while others only figuratively - and for it to be unclear which passages are which into the bargain. The Bible falls way short of this.

To turn your ‘all or nothing’ argument around, the Bible needs to be read all literally or all figuratively. It’s certainly necessary to have a consistent way of determining which passages are which.

[RBD]

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions.

I suppose if you don't actually read the whole thing you might be able to pretend that. We have hashed multiple contradictions on this site in the past. A simple Google search will give you an idea just how many there are.

A simple google search will show just how many accusations are made by interpertations, not by contradictions between the words. There are also corresponding interpretations that make just as much sense and more, without contradicting other parts of the Bible.

Only torturing the text to pretend it doesn't say what it actually says (and different sects of believers will torture the text differently) so that it lines up with their preferred beliefs will arrive at 'no self contradictions'.

This is true. My expierence is that the ones most torturing the Bible to make it say what they want to hear, are those professing faith in the Bible.

And I've seen the same kind of torturing practiced by anti-Bibliophobes, when coming up with intepretations that contradict the Bible rather quoted proofs of the Bible contradicting itself.

You won't convince anyone that isn't already a die hard believer there are no contradictions.

The same accusation of unobjective dishonesty can easily be said of die hard disbelieverr convinced there must be contradictions.

You can't even finish reading Genesis without running into a bunch of them. i.e. simply compare the two different creation narratives that were lifted from different tales and placed into Genesis. What a bad editing job that was. Now inerrantists are stuck with it. Good luck to them.

And so, another suggestion of contradiction is thrown into the ring. Let's look at it:

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

First, there is no grammatical contradiction here.

The creation of heaven and earth was in one day. Their celestial and terrestrial generations were made in 6 days, ending with man and woman created in God's image. A house is first created, and then the dressing of it is made to the owner's satisfaction to make it a home to dwell in.

Gen 2 confirms that the herbs were created on earth before man and woman, which is clarified in Gen 2. God made man and woman on the 6th day, with Adam's body made from dust, and Eve's body from Adam.

[benchwarmer]

The Bible is wholly consistent within itself, without any self-contradictions.

I suppose if you don't actually read the whole thing you might be able to pretend that. We have hashed multiple contradictions on this site in the past. A simple Google search will give you an idea just how many there are.

A simple google search will show just how many accusations are made by interpertations, not by contradictions between the words. There are also corresponding interpretations that make just as much sense and more, without contradicting other parts of the Bible.

Only torturing the text to pretend it doesn't say what it actually says (and different sects of believers will torture the text differently) so that it lines up with their preferred beliefs will arrive at 'no self contradictions'.

This is true. My expierence is that the ones most torturing the Bible to make it say what they want to hear, are those professing faith in the Bible.

And I've seen the same kind of torturing practiced by anti-Bibliophobes, when coming up with intepretations that contradict the Bible rather quoted proofs of the Bible contradicting itself.

You won't convince anyone that isn't already a die hard believer there are no contradictions.

The same accusation of unobjective dishonesty can easily be said of die hard disbelieverr convinced there must be contradictions.

You can't even finish reading Genesis without running into a bunch of them. i.e. simply compare the two different creation narratives that were lifted from different tales and placed into Genesis. What a bad editing job that was. Now inerrantists are stuck with it. Good luck to them.

And so, another suggestion of contradiction is thrown into the ring. Let's look at it:

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

First, there is no grammatical contradiction here.

The creation of heaven and earth was in one day. Their celestial and terrestrial generations were made in 6 days, ending with man and woman created in God's image. A house is first created, and then the dressing of it is made to the owner's satisfaction to make it a home to dwell in.

Gen 2 confirms that the herbs were created on earth before man and woman, which is clarified in Gen 2. God made man and woman on the 6th day, with Adam's body made from dust, and Eve's body from Adam.

It won't matter that I show you the order of creation is different, you will tap dance around and pretend they aren't. The beauty of this debate is that I'm not trying to convince YOU of anything. I simply have to point out to readers the issue and let them go read/research themselves. Anyone can go read both Genesis accounts and compare the order of when things were supposedly done. After doing that, they can either take the words as they are written, or they can engage in apologetics and try and twist things to mean what they want it to mean. At this point, my work is done. Readers are free to arrive at their own conclusions.

If you think your apologetics are convincing, then have at it. Keep in mind not everyone reading this is already a believer. Which do you think is more convincing? Reading the text as written, or torturing it and/or inserting your own words to make it line up?

[Difflugia]

As in all efforts to insert an error or contradiction into the Book, the correction for translation begins good and then ends badly with an invented narrative.

The good correction does show that the same translation can be done for Judas purchasing the field for himself in italics. This practice is done many times elsewhere in the Bible for expanded translation into English. In the Greek, it is understood and therefore redundant.

However, redundancy does not allow for the additional wording about performing the act himself. That is an abuse of translation for a false narrative.

Then you're misunderstanding the meaning in Greek for which you claim the wording is redundant. It is, as you say, understood in the Greek that Judas purchased the field for himself. The problem is that in Acts 1:18, translators don't add the extra information that is understood in the Greek. This allows apologists to appeal to the veneer of ambiguity in English about who performed the purchase, but that ambiguity isn't present in Greek. In English, one might argue that the priests performed the actual transaction. In Greek, that's not true.

The redundancy does not require the purchaser to buy the field in person at the transaction.

I disagree and I think I'm supported by both Greek lexicographers and the examples from extant Greek sources.

Once again, there is no grammatical error nor contradiction, such as Acts correcting Matthew by saying, "He purchased the field by himself alone..." That is only a false invention by an openly abused liberty of translation.

Again, I think that's exactly what the vocabulary and grammar of Acts 1:18 would convey to a second-century Greek reader.

When opposing arguments are made, it is then up to the other to prove any error in them, not just disagree and 'declare victory'.

You mean like quoting from academic lexicons and grammars?

The Bible doesn't claim inerrancy for itself. The argument is between me and the personal theology that you've attempted to map onto the Bible.

For someone that appears to be well read in the Bible, this is an error for those not reading all the Bible. Perhaps your knowledge of the Bible is limited solely to finding fault in it?

Hardly. The difference is that I try not to read external theology back into the text.

Others have already responded to this from the Bible, and I'll add some more:

Psa 19:9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

2 Tim 3:16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Mat 24:35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

None of these imply plenary verbal inerrancy, which is what you're arguing for in your initial post. Either doctrinal inerrancy or a doctrine of Holy Spirit intervention being necessary for understanding would satisfy any of these verses.

The Author's claim is that all the words of the Book are true and righteous, written by God, and eternal.

The whole point of seeking error in the Bible, is to disprove the Author's claim of true, righteous, divine, eternal inerrancy.

That's a fine theological conclusion, but not a necessary one.