Inerrancy questions

The theological authority comes from God. He is able to use our translations to speak to our hearts.

The translations we have are excellent translations but honest and careful translators disagree on phrases here and there, we all know that. It is the human condition.

The Greek and Hebrew texts we have are excellently preserved over the centuries but honest and careful transcribers sometimes made copy errors. Therefore, it becomes a matter of judgement to try to divine the original text from the current copies, in some places. Honest and careful students of the word disagree on how to do that. It is the human condition.

God has evidently decided to use this method of sharing knowledge of Him in spite of these apparant limitations. To the astonishment of us all, he allows human imperfection to color His original inspiration. It must be that in spite of the imperfections noted above it is good enough to accomplish His purposes. This becomes, perhaps, a comfort to those of us who preach; by the foolishness of preaching His Word is spread, and that in spite of imperfect preachers.

 

Amen, Paul.

There are no perfect translations. Hebrew and Greek are languages that use words of many meanings and shades of meaning, while English is more exact (hence our extremely large number of words). Many words and phrases used in the Bible have no corresponding word or words in English, but most (yes, I said most) translators have labored long and hard for many years to bring about the most acurate translation they could.

Is the Bible full of flaws and errors? I do not believe so. Whatever miniscule variation there might be found, God has not allowed it to change the meaning of His word. God's word is inerrant, no matter what we think or say. Whether we believe it so or not does not matter, it still stands as God's written revelation to man.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

The confusion, IMHO, is that some on the board are not making a distinction between inspiration and preservation. The Word was given to man by the process of inspiration. That is an activity that involved the original human author and resulted in the original text. God's work through the Holy Spirit of superintending the original human author is the guarantee that the original text was inerrant.

However, God has preserved his Word in a different manner. In his sovereignty, he has chosen to use human and imperfect means to preserve his word in written form. This means results in a complete loss of the originals, yet a myriad of ancient manuscripts which contain some descrepancies. Liberals look at this process and conclude that, since we do not have the originals, and since there are descrepancies, we do not have the Word of God. They thereby reject inspiration (or re-define the term) and inerrancy.

KJVOs are equally troubled by God's process of preserving his Word and concoct a theory of preservation which ignores the history of the text and demands allegiance to a particular translation that demonstrably errs. Conveniently, the translation that they have picked just happens to be the one they are used to, have always used, and which just happens to be in their language. Lucky them!

 

npetreley,

If you are going to accuse someone of making an irrational statement you ought at least to get it right. I tried to explain to you that my statement was directed only at those who contend that the Scriptures do in fact contain errors and yet still claim they have theological authority. My last statment to you on this subject (which you apparently didn't read or chose to ignore) was:

My only contention with you was that, in the absence of any data that would indicate some corruption of the text or inadequacy of the English translation, it is intellectually dishonest to fabricate one simply to rescue a passage from an apparent error.

For example, I had a seminary teacher who asserted that, since some of the head counts in the Old Testament seemed fabulous, they must have been copyist errors. He didn't even claim to know of some variant text that would indicate a copyist error; his sole basis for making the assertion was his personal judgement that the numbers just seemed too high.

This is sheer fabrication of the sort that gives infidels the perfect right to accuse inerrantists of being intellectually dishonest in their handling of the Scriptures.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Man, have you read anything I said? Let's try again. I said,

I did not say that any particular English translation necessarily represents what was originally "written and intended." I did not say the text was in error as it was written and intended.

All I said was that if a man assumes that the text was in error as it was written and intended - as many who deny inerrancy do - then he robs the text of any theological authority.

Are you listening now? Listen very closely....I AM IN INERRANTIST...I DO NOT LAY ANY BLAME ON GOD OR MOSES....ALL I HAVE SAID IS THAT THE MAN WHO ASSUMES THAT THE TEXT AS IT WAS WRITTEN AND INTENDED IS IN ERROR MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT EITHER GOD ERRED OR MOSES LIED ABOUT WHAT GOD SAID.

If you had read my posts you would have known that I made the exact same defence of the Leviticus passage that you make here, with the execption that I am not willing to say the text may contain a copyist error because I have no evidence whatsoever for it.

The complaint list was not mine; it was Matt Black's. I haven't even commented on the Goliath question; I have only commented on the list of dietary regulations.

If I were commenting on the "brother of Goliath" question I would simply note that the words "brother of" in the King James Version are italicized which means they were not in original text. Obviously the King James Translators put them there because they perceived a problem with the text as it stands. At least they were honest enough to put them in italics so we would know it was only their opinion.

I have no problem with that text saying simply "Goliath." Obviously, not the same Goliath that David killed; perhaps his son or some other namesake.

The only way the text presents a problem is if you start with the unreasonable presuposition that there couldn't have been two giants named Goliath who carried a staff like a weaver's beam.

Again, I am an inerrantist! The only problem I had with any inerrantist on this subject was that some of us inerrantists use the "copyist error" defence with way too much liberty.

Mark Osgatharp

[ October 15, 2003, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: Mark Osgatharp ]

 

I totally agree with you in principle. However, I think the phrase translated "chew the cud" probably meant a ruminant because the same term is used to describe both a camel and a cow which we know to be ruminants.

As for the meaning of the word translated "hare", I think it is safe to say that no one really knows what animal it was and therefore those who say the text erred in it's identification of cud chewing animals are full of baloney.

That man is assuming a LOT more than that the text as it is written and intended is in error. For example, with the "chew the cud" problem, that man is assuming, IN ADDITION, that the English translation is a perfect representation of the intention of the original Hebrew. I have no problem with the possibility that the original Hebrew in Leviticus 11 may be exactly what God/Moses intended. That doesn't mean that either the rabbit "chews the cud" or God/Moses lied. It probably means the passage has been inadequately translated.</font>[/QUOTE]Again, I agree. But my point still stands for those who think the text is a bona fide error that they cannot possibly maintain that the text has any theological authority, unless they are comfortable with a God who doesn't know about His own creation or a prophet who tells lies about God.

Mark Osgatharp

 

I've been watching this thread with interest, wondering how long it would take you two guys to realise that you were really singing from the ame inerrantist hymnsheet. Now that you've reached convergence, a brief comment:

Mark, my problem is not that I assume that this text or that text is in error - don't forget I used to be an inerrantist so would approach these difficult passages with the assumption that they weren't in error - but, rather, that when faced with evidence that apparently suggests the contrary ie:error, it is that evidence that pushes me towards the preliminary conclusion that either the original or the translation must be in error. I stress preliminary conclusion because it is not final and neither do I want it to be final - I want to revert to my original inerrantist position. So I need further evidence or explanation to push me back; I simply cannot take the position that because my theology demands inerrancy the evidence must agree with that - that to me smacks of the kind of blind faith which I decried in one of my posts on my thread and strikes me as being intellectually dishonest. The whole reason I started the thread was to invite such evidence and explanations.

Yours in Christ

Matt

(Have posted last paragraph onto my thread for completeness)

 

Matt,

So when will you have enough evidence? There are all sorts of things in the Scripture for which we have no evidence at all except the Scriptures themsleves. We believe these things because God gave us the gift of faith, not because someone proved them to us.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Faith says, if God said a certain animal chewed the cud, then it chewed the cud. Unbelief says, I'll not believe that animal chewed the cud unless I can see one and disect it and find out.

Faith says, if God said he raised Jesus from the dead then He raised Jesus from the dead. Unbelief says, I'll not believe unless I can touch the scars in his hand and put my hand in his side.

Mark Osgatharp

 

I'm happy with that kind of faith,Mark. What I struggle with is the kind of faith that demands credulity in the face of evidence to the contrary eg: faith that demands I believe that a rabbit chews the cud when the evidence says it doesn't; faith that demands that I believe the earth was created in 6 literal days when the evidence says that it took quite a bit longer than that (note: I am NOT denying that God created the earth, simply questioning the time He took). In such circumstances, in answer to your question, I require either evidence in favour of the faith position demanded or an explanation that marries up the evidence with the faith position. In the case of Lev 11:5-6, we are I believe achieving that with some of the posts, so don't let our disagreements spoil that

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Matt,

All of the evidence available to you, except for the Scriptures, says that when people die the do nor rise again. You have never yet met a man who died and rose again. Every grave yard, every mausoleum, every mummy, every tomb stone, and every skeleton you have ever seen testifies to the fact that men do not rise from the dead.

There is far more evidence that people don't rise from the dead than that some unidentified animal that lived in ancient Israel didn't chew the cud. So which is harder to believe, that Christ rose from the dead as the gospels assert or that Moses was correct when he recorded the fact that God said a certain animal chewed the cud?

Mark Osgatharp

 

Good point, Mark. Will go away and think about that

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Nowhere in the Bible does it claim that God dictated the content. Rather he ONLY inspired it. Thus, there can be errors, deletions, lost verbiage, misinterpretation, interpolation, plagiarism, myth insertion and down right fraud by certain authors and later scholars. None of which removes the fact that it was INSPIRED by God and is worthy of our study and devotion. But all of which would cause major problems if DICTATED by God.

For then we would have to believe that God has given us multiple messages and he "changed" his mind at a later time after writing the first edition, then after the 2nd edition, on and on after each additional change.

 

Mark, I think you have overlooked that Jesus coming back from the dead was revealed to us as a divine miracle and is what we base our belief in God upon, but a rabbit chewing it's cud was not being revealed to us as a miracle, but rather an everyday occurrence and normal animal behavior.

 

Rabbits are rabbits and they chew their cud. They are not, however, ruminants. Here:
http://www.nixonandmarshall.co.uk/rabbitdigestiontract.html

The trick is in the definition of 'cud.' If it is defined as confined to ruminants, then what do you do with the rabbit which passes pellets which are not feces, and eats those pellets, as what they are is only partially digested food? It doesn't eat its feces; so don't confuse the two.

The Hebrews knew about rabbits. They included their eating habits along with those of cattle etc., which re-ingest undigested or partially digested food. They were smart to do so. We are stupid to keep arguing about it.

The Bible is inerrant in its original signatures. Yes, there are errors since then, but none which alter the basic message or history. We have tracked most of the copyist errors, and a good many others, which we 'declare' errors, are matters of our ignorance, not those of either the original authors or the translators.