How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

[otseng]

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:

How can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

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Thread Milestones

• Case study of Hezekiah
• Start discussing global flood / Flood Model summary
• Recap arguments of authority of the Bible
• Start discussing Tower of Babel / Tower of Babel summary
• Start discussing archaeology / Philosophy of science / Origin of alphabet / End of discussion on archaeology
• Start discussing cosmology / Concluding cosmology
• Start discussing Shroud of Turin / Summary top TS imaging theories / Created DefendingChristianity.com and TS subforums / Shroud of Turin summary
• Start discussing Bible and resurrection
• Start discussing the Messiahship of Jesus / Messiahship of Jesus wrap up
• Start discussing Old Testament ethics
• Summary argument of atheism and morality / God basis for objective morality
• Start discussing genocide / Genocide summary argument
• Start discussing slavery / Slavery summary argument
• Start discussing homosexuality / Homosexuality summary argument
• Old Testament ethics summary argument
• Start discussing philosophy / Summary argument on philosophy
• Start discussing creation of universe / Summary argument universe was created

[TRANSPONDER]

How is it that God was able to create an entire universe in all of its complexity, fine tuning everything to the umpteenth decimal place to function properly, but was apparently unable to apply the same degree of precision to the most important document he provided for the benefit of all humanity?

Even with the fine-tuning of the universe, not everyone accepts it or believes in it. So, there is no conformity there either.

All these hypotheticals about what a perfect God should have done could go on forever. We can make up endless hypothetical questions. But ultimately, it boils down to the assumption of an omnipotent God. I do not make the claim that God is omnipotent. And actually, I believe God is NOT omnipotent.

A non -omnipotent God would make more sense when one looks at the Bible, but one at least must see God as the creator of everything one way or the other and with the ability to intervene, arrange things, plan, execute and bring things about from prophecy to prayers. If you say not so, then I have to wonder whether you wouldn't find life easier arguing the non -religious side.

God is NOT omnipotent.

Then why call Him God?

God is just a generic term. We can use more a more specific name, like YHVH, if need be.

Maybe 'nature' would be even better, not limiting the creator of everything to one particular man -made religion.

It's not about conformity in that belief. That's not the point I was making. If God had the intelligence and ability to do something as significant as creating and fine-tuning the universe, then surely he could have applied the same precision to the production of the Bible. A Bible completely free of ambiguities and errors is surely a preferable alternative. Having people being able to read the same book and come to the same understanding and the same conclusions seems to me a lot better than what we have now.

And my point is even if the Bible had high precision, what guarantee would there be that people would come to the same understanding and conclusion when we have a universe that has extremely high precision and there's no uniformity of acceptance of God. As an aside, I do think the Bible has mathematical fine-tuning/design in it, but I'll leave that for later.

One major difference of the universe and the Bible though is God directly created the universe whereas the Bible was directly created by people. The Bible did not get created out of nothing or out of the dust of the ground or fall down from the sky. It was written by people. So, it will be subject to human frailties and limitations.

Now if people require to worship a God that is omnipotent and supernaturally created a perfect book from nothing, more power to you. Feel free to worship that religion (if such a religion exists). But, this religion would not be Christianity.

Very good, but I don't think these points of fine tuning or either universe or as applied to the Bible is really the argument. It's more a question of creation and control. Man couldn't have made the universe but he could have made the Bible. In a way the argument that the universe couldn't be other than it is like the claim that the Bible couldn't say anything other than it does, which no Christian I know of makes as it often does say something else, like John 7.53-811 sometimes gets put in Luke 21.38., But the universe can be argued to be natural and the believers have to rely on cosmic origins as the biggest and best gap for God, since the origin of our particular Universe doesn't require a god, nor does life or even consciousness.

But the Bible is far from 'fine tuned' (unless in some way that I suspect would be ferretted out like hidden messages) and the point is it isn't even reliable, either in the way it uses history (spin and prophecy) and even less so in the gospels, not because of slips like 'The carpenter' instead of 'the carpenter's son' but big ones like the nativity nonsense or John never having heard of the transfiguration.

[otseng]

but big ones like the nativity nonsense or John never having heard of the transfiguration.

You mean like Christmas nativity nonsense?

As for John and the transfiguration, it's easily explainable if the apostle John did not write the gospel. Why would such a remarkable event be mentioned in all the other gospels, but John himself would not mention it? More on this in Who wrote the Gospel we call "John's"?

[nobspeople]

but big ones like the nativity nonsense or John never having heard of the transfiguration.

You mean like Christmas nativity nonsense?

As for John and the transfiguration, it's easily explainable if the apostle John did not write the gospel. Why would such a remarkable event be mentioned in all the other gospels, but John himself would not mention it? More on this in Who wrote the Gospel we call "John's"?

What if John DID write it? How would that be explained then?

[TRANSPONDER]

but big ones like the nativity nonsense or John never having heard of the transfiguration.

You mean like Christmas nativity nonsense?

Well that's even more nonsense with the magi and shepherds turning up at the same time and the cowshed when Matthew makes it implicit that it was their own home in Judea. Only Luke says that they lived in Galilee and went right back there after the rites. But the two nativities are nonsense enough with discrepancies in time, place, events and pretty much everything other than the one thing - a Bethlehem birth - which is why they were written in the first place.

As for John and the transfiguration, it's easily explainable if the apostle John did not write the gospel. Why would such a remarkable event be mentioned in all the other gospels, but John himself would not mention it? More on this in Who wrote the Gospel we call "John's"?

It doesn't matter who wrote the gospel. The fact is that the writer narrates the whole event at Bethsaida from the feeding of the 5,000 to the return by walking on the water. He even describes the event where Jesus goes up the hill for this transfiguration, except that it isn't. It's to escape the crowd (of feasters) who want to make him a king.

How could anyone writing that gospel not have known about the transfiguration when he described the event of that day or days - unless it never happened? It's not the only omission. There's no nativity. Indeed the gospel tacitly denies it at 7.42. Nor does he have the sermon on the mount, just as the synoptics have none of the sermons, nor indeed the raising of Lazarus.

There is a problem here and frankly, the excuses 'he hadn't heard about that', 'he didn't bother to mention it for some reason' or 'he wrote from a different point of view' don't cut the mustard. We have problem of credibility and reliability when important stuff like this is left out or, rather, added in by one of the others.

[POI]

If YHWH exists, how do you know He is not all powerful? And if He is indeed, not all powerful, does YHWH then submit to higher power?

All I'm saying is he is not "omnipotent", which is a term I think should be throw out, just like inerrancy. It is a meaningless term. But no, YHVH does not submit to a higher power. He is God Almighty, Lord of heaven and earth, God Most High.

Woah there You seem to want to hand-wave away two key terms (inerrancy and omnipotence), to push your own personal narrative. And yet, you have not yet answered my fundamental question....

If God exists, HOW do you know He is not all powerful?

And once you grant a response above, to where we can move forward, we can then explore how what you also state looks to directly contradict itself. (i.e.) If, as you say, God is "Most High", then He either has the power to do whatever He wants and chooses exactly what He chooses (Biblical errancy), or, He is limited and does not have full/complete control of this situation - (which looks to fly in the face of the given term "Most High")?

Side note... To assure you do not try to express how I am issuing a false dichotomy, either He (does or does not) have complete control.

Another side note.... If He does not have complete control, maybe you might want to instead use the term "pretty High" instead of "Most High"?

[Diagoras]

I'm not discounting the possibility of God speaking directly to people. And it certainly does happen. But on what basis can we judge what they say is true?

We have people coming all the time on this forum claiming to hear directly from God. Yet, on this forum, it has no place as evidence. It is subjective evidence in that it is based on one person's experience. It is not something we can judge if it's true or false.

<bolding mine>

If the experience is given to multiple people though, such that the message can be verified (call it a 'celestial blockchain' if you like), then that surely becomes worthy of consideration. I'm happy to downgrade the direct interaction from 'everyone' to simply 'ten thousand people at once, across twenty different countries' as a starting offer.

I question this assumption of omnipotence. How do you know God is omnipotent?

Remember we started this with you assuming theism is true. Seems a bit harsh not to allow me an assumption of my own, but with my 'downgrade', I suggest this assumption becomes moot.

Starting from your initial assumptions, the optimal method for acquiring knowledge of a god would be to have that god impart it directly to whosoever required it.

If God spoke to me, yes, I'd agree. But for those that God does not speak directly to, that option would not be available.

Ok, it seems we agree that:

1) The optimal method for you (otseng) acquiring knowledge of a god would be to have that god impart it directly to you.

How about:

2) The optimal method for you (otseng) and X other people acquiring knowledge of a god would be to have that god impart it directly to all of you simultaneously.

Do you agree with Statement 2?

If we set X to only 2, and that pair of people were able to 'compare notes', imagine how awe-struck they would be! You could perhaps imagine talking to a trusted friend after having talked to God - he had exactly the same revelation given to him! Now push X out to a hundred people, or a thousand... surely for the Creator of the Universe, this isn't difficult? We don't actually have to make any claims about omnipotence here, even if we set X at eight billion.

[otseng]

What if John DID write it? How would that be explained then?

Why should the burden be on me to explain a hypothetical that I don't even believe? Plus, it's not directly relevant to this thread.

Well that's even more nonsense with the magi and shepherds turning up at the same time and the cowshed when Matthew makes it implicit that it was their own home in Judea.

Throw in current culture's view of Christmas and it's a hodgepodge of events. But, ultimately it's not really that important in this thread since it's already recognized inconsistencies can exist.

We have problem of credibility and reliability when important stuff like this is left out or, rather, added in by one of the others.

When something is either left out or added doesn't necessarily mean what they've written is false.

Woah there You seem to want to hand-wave away two key terms (inerrancy and omnipotence), to push your own personal narrative. And yet, you have not yet answered my fundamental question....

If God exists, HOW do you know He is not all powerful?

I hand-wave because it's not really relevant to this thread and there's an entire thread where I've already debated this. I'd rather not duplicate that debate here in this already complex topic.

[otseng]

2) The optimal method for you (otseng) and X other people acquiring knowledge of a god would be to have that god impart it directly to all of you simultaneously.

Do you agree with Statement 2?

No, I don't agree with it. The Israelite saw God directly act when they were delivered from Egypt, saved from Pharoah's army, fed in the wilderness, given the law, etc and yet they still did not believe. Direct personal encounters with God does not necessarily mean it would result in any change in belief or action.

If the experience is given to multiple people though, such that the message can be verified (call it a 'celestial blockchain' if you like), then that surely becomes worthy of consideration. I'm happy to downgrade the direct interaction from 'everyone' to simply 'ten thousand people at once, across twenty different countries' as a starting offer.

If that group of people existed thousands of years ago, how would that message be communicated to us now?

Remember we started this with you assuming theism is true. Seems a bit harsh not to allow me an assumption of my own, but with my 'downgrade', I suggest this assumption becomes moot.

Theism does not necessarily mean God is omnipotent. My main problem with it is there's no agreement on what "omnipotent" means. The popular use of the term is "God can do anything." This then leads to meaningless hypotheticals such as "Can God make a square a circle?" or "If God is omnipotent, why can't he [fill in the blank here]?"

[TRANSPONDER]

If YHWH exists, how do you know He is not all powerful? And if He is indeed, not all powerful, does YHWH then submit to higher power?

All I'm saying is he is not "omnipotent", which is a term I think should be throw out, just like inerrancy. It is a meaningless term. But no, YHVH does not submit to a higher power. He is God Almighty, Lord of heaven and earth, God Most High.

Woah there You seem to want to hand-wave away two key terms (inerrancy and omnipotence), to push your own personal narrative. And yet, you have not yet answered my fundamental question....

If God exists, HOW do you know He is not all powerful?

And once you grant a response above, to where we can move forward, we can then explore how what you also state looks to directly contradict itself. (i.e.) If, as you say, God is "Most High", then He either has the power to do whatever He wants and chooses exactly what He chooses (Biblical errancy), or, He is limited and does not have full/complete control of this situation - (which looks to fly in the face of the given term "Most High")?

Side note... To assure you do not try to express how I am issuing a false dichotomy, either He (does or does not) have complete control.

Another side note.... If He does not have complete control, maybe you might want to instead use the term "pretty High" instead of "Most High"?

This is a thing that comes out of the discussion about 'what do you mean by God?'. This popped up in former debates where some Theists thought it cute to demand that atheists define God before discussion. I don't know whether the idea was to put the atheist on the defensive, but the response was that the atheists (on the board) said the theists should define God - it was what they believed in after all - and then we'd know what was being discussed. I recall we has one slippery theophanic eel who said 'that's not what I mean by God' every time we tried an argument and this 'well you atheists should define God' came out of it.

Our pal otseng above has a very different take on God...I think. It would seem that he doesn't believe that God is all knowing or all powerful, which is sure different from the creator of Everything who had it all planned before he stated wadding Cosmic Stuff together into the BB event. This raises the 'is god an alien species' discussion which throws up 'is there more than one God?', 'Why should we worship an alien bully?' and 'does God know what He is doing?' which sure fits the big human blundering around Eden calling for Adam 'Come out wherever you are', having a flood that wiped out animals that hadn't done any harm (1), and then being sorry he'd done it afterwards. It would make a lot more sense if God did Not know how things would turn out and is just as much in the dark as we are.

(1) the apologetic about T -Rex, peacefully browsing the Adunaic grassland until Adam disobeyed and T-Rex resultantly realised that his powerful Jaws would be just the thing to use on the Triceratops that were used for kiddy - rides at the Eden fairgrounds, is the apologetic for explaining that all creation became wicked because of Adam's fall. Which of course makes Noah's job harder as he really should pick the most Righteous breeding pair of critters to take on the Ark.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to otseng in post #87]

Why should the burden be on me to explain a hypothetical that I don't even believe?

And yet, you answered it anyway. Thank you.

Plus, it's not directly relevant to this thread.

Immaterial response. You asked "Why would such a remarkable event be mentioned in all the other gospels, but John himself would not mention it?". It's a very typical response to ask the counter question and how it would relate to the issue you, yourself, brought up.