Word of God or Human Error?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 1:43 am

Christian Fundamentalist will tell you that every word in the bible should be taken seriously and literally mainly because it is the word of God and the word of God is not to be meddled/discriminated against.

Then non-Christian fundamentalists (Mormons, Catholics, Orthodox, etc.) will tell counter argue that, "Well wait a minute! The bible was left in the imperfect hands of man for 2000 years - surely due to our imperfection, the word of God must have imperfections as well. Therefore, no not all things in the bible should be taken seriously because they may very well be the error of man."

Then the funadamentalist will counter-argue, "Well then, how do you know which parts of the bible are the words of God and which parts of the bible are the errors of man" ... Or atleast an honest non-stubborn Fundamentalist.

So how do you answer?
How do you know which parts of the bible are the words of God and which parts of the bible are the errors of man?
How are you so sure that you hold the right interpretation as opposed to others?

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 4:07 am

Well I think it is safe to say that all Christendom consider the Bible to be inspired of God whether Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and so forth; and so it is considered within Christianity as one authoritative theological source whether or not the question of inerrancy (which most Evangelical Christians would say only applies to the original signatures) is settled.

For example, the definitive 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly grounds the authority of Scripture in its divine inspiration:

In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: "101 Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men."

102 Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely:
<blockquote>You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.</blockquote>
103 For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body.

104 In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God". "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them."

II. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."

So all of Christendom are on a foundational level in agreement with according a special status to Scripture. How did it come to receive such a special status? It is said the New Testament in particular received such a status and became canonized not because someone or a council decided upon it, but rather it is because the books which comprise it amongst other things had gained such wide acceptance within Christianity and had 'apostolic authority.' One theologian, Morwenna Ludlow, summarised the situation in these words:

"With regard to most books it was a question of [the church] explaining why it had what it had, rather than deciding on what it should have. No council sat down to choose the texts according to some pre-established set of criteria, just as a selection committee might decide on the sort of person they want to fill a post, before interviewing the candidates. Rather, there is some sense in which the canon chose (or formed) the Church, rather than the Church chose (or formed) the canon….[W]hat seems to be happening…is that the Church is formulating reason or explanations for why it has what it had, not criteria for choosing what it should have in the future."

(Morwenna Ludlow, "'Criteria of Canonicity' and the Early Church" in John Barton and Michael Wolter (eds), Die Einheit der Schrift and die Vielfalt des Kanons /The Unity of the Scripture and the Diversity of the Canon (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 69-93)

Though I know some evangelicals within the late 19th to early 20th century were often associated with fundamentalism; I kind of see it as not entirely correct to characterise "inerrantists" as "fundamentalists." I associate fundamentalism with a rigid adherence to certain doctrines and principles, where anyone who falls outside such beliefs would be viewed in a negative light or judged. This can happen within just about any belief system. So fundamentalism I suppose kind of has a double meaning.

I also use to find "how do you know which parts of the Bible are words of God and others not" line compelling and used it even myself. But the thing is someone might accept some books as more reliable than others, and then work to the heart of the gospel message Christians proclaim. It isn't necessarily an all or nothing deal.

To conclude my own thoughts on this issue, I really think the issue of inerrancy is a question for only the Christian to decide upon. I think it would be unfair to ask a non-Christian to accept the Bible as inerrant, although if they are seriously looking to Christianity for answers they should at least respect the fact that we are in general agreement that it is at the very least inspired and good for guidence and instruction.

Kurieuo.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 9:23 am

Well that justified the authors but what I ment to ask was about the preservation and translations of the bible. Surely there must be errors because of it.

I was just wondering this question for a while now. Awhile it is honest, I am not looking to convert as I do not find the concept of God logical but that is another conversation.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 9:59 pm

NevermindDeath wrote:Well that justified the authors but what I ment to ask was about the preservation and translations of the bible. Surely there must be errors because of it.

Yes, but we have so many manuscripts (~24000+) that it becomes easy, but no doubt time consuming, work patching them together as the originals would have been. There is an article on the God and Science website which actually goes into further detail on this (see Is Our Copy of the Bible a Reliable Copy of the Original?).

Kurieuo.

RGeeB · Post by **RGeeB** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:36 am

The problem is that interpretations vary due to the limited vocabulary of the English language. Most of Bible teaching comes from those who use English translations.

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. Once we know the truth we are responsible to abide by it. If someone living under God's grace is not convicted of something we are, then we are responsible for being sensitive and not judge.

I believe God will judge those who never had the Bible or were told of the Gospel, by a different standard. Maybe, based on the convictions of truth He gave them.

However, we have the Bible and we have no excuse. We are free to study it and be convicted of truth for ourselves. Maybe for some the source of this study is from Bible teachers, books or even the internet.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:30 am

folks...the bible itself says its inspired (cant think of the verse of hand) now it either is...or its lying...think about it..

RGeeB · Post by **RGeeB** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:39 am

The Bible is inspired; but interpretations may not always be..

hermitville101 · Post by **hermitville101** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:42 pm

NevermindDeath wrote:I was just wondering this question for a while now. Awhile it is honest, I am not looking to convert as I do not find the concept of God logical but that is another conversation.

If you don't mind, I would be interested to know why you don't find God logical. If you don't mind that "other conversation".

LittleShepherd · Post by **LittleShepherd** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:24 pm

Out of the entire Bible, we are now certain of the correct original words of almost all of it. There are only a handful of verses that are even up for debate -- in other words, the original version of the Bible(Hebrew, Greek, and whatever that 3rd language was) is almost completely confirmed.

Translations, on the other hand, aren't always perfect. The King James version is nice, for example, but suffers from certain deficiencies on part of the translator. Most version don't differ on important issues such as the specifics of Christ's deity, salvation, etc., but do require further study in order to determine that the Flood was local, and that the creation account isn't talking about literal days.

Certain translations, such as the one used by Jehovah's Witnesses, are intentionally misleading. They believe that Christ hung on a stake due to one word that means tree being intentionally mistranslated as "stake," for example.

Other than intentional mistranslations(mostly associated with cults), you can trust the majority of Bible translations when it comes to the important stuff. If you want to be extra-careful, you should read multiple translations if you have access to them. And you should also look to the Bible in its original languages -- you can learn a lot from looking at the original words, and the strange(to us) nuances of their languages. There are many books out there that discuss certain words used in the original version of the Bible -- nuances, verb tenses, and other things that don't always translate well into English.

hermitville101 · Post by **hermitville101** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:43 pm

The way I understand it the word for day in Genesis does not require a 24 hour period but can mean that. I think the same goes for the flood, and I don't understand the feasability of a local flood. How did Noah land on a mountain if it was local? That's a really large local and if it was that large it would quickly drain away into the rest of the world, unless the geography looked like a big bowl with no holes in it, but I havn't seen anywhere like that on this planet. Not to mention it would have to somehow keep people from running out of it, so that would mean cliffs all around, like a really big cage or something? I have yet to research the point, but when I first heard it I laughed because it sounded foolish... but perhaps I should reevaluate...if someone gave me reason to. I'm missing some logic somewhere.

LittleShepherd · Post by **LittleShepherd** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:26 pm

Well, the mountain is within the region where the Flood occurred -- that's how the ark ended up there.

As for how the Flood was contained -- who knows. All science and the Bible show us is that a Flood did happen, and that it was apparently contained in that area. How it was so contained...well, it was a supernatural event. I mean, if God could make so much water converge in a single area and flood it, it's not a stretch at all to believe He could contain it where He wanted it.

The ultimate logic in light of faith is this -- "It's God, silly!" I really don't know what more you need than that. A lot of what he did in the Bible makes sense in light of modern science, and a lot of it does not. I suppose we'll be discovering more and more until the very end, with some things still a mystery.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:54 pm

It wasn't necessarily a mountain the ark landed on, but rather mountains or hilly area. And although many believe it was a local flood, it was still enormous covering hills and mountainous regions. It wasn't like your typical down the end of the road local flood, but still enormous covering all the land in the region at that time.

Genesis 8:3-4—At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

There is also much to be gleaned from the page at http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... flood.html to do with a case for a local flood if further interested.

Kurieuo.