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Innerrancy - an open request for help

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by Matt Black, Oct 8, 2003.

  1. Paul of Eugene

    Paul of Eugene New Member

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    Hi again Mark . . .

    Well, I won't be judging that ancient unknown scribe, God will, and that's as it should be, meanwhile, we are stuck with the Leviticus we have as a result. I suppose one could, alternatively, postulate a scribal error in transcription. Perhaps God will judge some scribe back there for carelessness, perhaps not;

    But . . . extinct creatures? I don't think we're going to find any flying insects from 4000 years ago that aren't alive now and had four legs instead of six. THAT is not in the picture at all! :rolleyes:
     
  2. Mark Osgatharp

    Mark Osgatharp New Member

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    Even if the text said that whatever creatures they were describing only had four legs, it is amazing that you think you are in a better position to count the legs on creatures than God, Moses, or the copyists.

    But the text says no such thing. It says that the creatures had four feet as well as "legs" above their feet. Any way you count it, that is at least six legs.

    [​IMG]

    Mark Osgatharp
     
  3. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

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    My answer would be, so what? People interpret the Bible in contrary ways all the time without the issue of inerrancy ever being raised. Some interpret strictly from a spiritual and symbolic perspective, others from a literal perspective, and still others from a combination. So it doesn't mean diddly what the "consequences" of any position may be.

    I did not assume a copyist error. I suggested it as one possibility. You are focusing exclusively on that possibility and then somehow reaching the conclusion that any apparent problem has consequences for God and Moses. That's poor reasoning at best. Since there are other explanations for apparent problems in the Bible, it does not come down to God and Moses. In fact, that assertion has the least support of all because we don't have the original texts against which to make that claim. All we have are copies and occasionally inadequate translations. Therefore one cannot attribute the error to God and Moses with any confidence at all.
     
  4. Paul of Eugene

    Paul of Eugene New Member

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    OH that's what it says. Funny, I keep missing the words "as well as". What verse did you find them in?
     
  5. Mark Osgatharp

    Mark Osgatharp New Member

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    npetreley,

    My statements about God or Moses being in error were not directed at you; they were directed at those who maintain that the text is in error, and yet assert that it has theological authority. My point is that, assuming the text, as it was written and intended, is in error it unquestionably impugns either the character of Moses or of God. Therefore those who claim the text can be in error and still posses theological authority are full of proverbial baloney.

    Mark Osgatharp
     
  6. Ed Edwards

    Ed Edwards <img src=/Ed.gif>

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    And this information
    is to edify Brother Matt how?

    If life gives you baloney;
    make baloney sandwiches.
    Oh, ooops, that should be [​IMG]
    If life gives you lemons;
    make banana splits.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

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    I think that's a whole 'nother issue, so I'm going to start a new thread with the question(s) I think you're really asking.
     
  8. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    I think another factor to be thrown in is Jesus' high view of Scripture. If Adam, Eve, Noah etc were not real people, why did He refer to them as if they were? Still doesn't help me much with the 'problem passages' though... :confused: :(

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  9. Ed Edwards

    Ed Edwards <img src=/Ed.gif>

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    Brother Matt, your "friends" seem about as
    useful as the friends of Job :(

    Trust God and take vitamin "C" suppmements!
    [​IMG]
     
  10. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    I throw this next bit in just to emphasis that, for me, this issue is of paramount importance:-

    "Here's why this matters to me: A friend of mine has a brother who left the Christian faith when he found out that rabbits don't chew cud.

    "Huh," you say? Well, look at Lev. 11:6. There rabbits are portrayed as cud-chewing. They make a cud-chewing motion with their mouths, and so ancient Israel apparently thought they were doing what cows do (and God apparently humored them, because making the point was more important than introducing Israel to modern biology).

    Well, I hate to break this to you, but rabbits don't chew cud after all. And when this fellow found out, he decided the Bible was unreliable, and that Jesus might not have risen. And so he left the faith.

    Why was this such a reasonable course for him? Because his church had taught him that every "fact" in the Bible had to be scientifically, historically valid — that Leviticus was (among other things) a zoological manual, or else it was a lie.

    I think this is not only an incorrect interpretive strategy, it's an immoral one.

    The irony is that we're trained to be open to just this latitude with many other texts. When Jesus notes that God causes the sun to rise (Matt. 5:45), we don't worry like our medieval brothers and sisters did. When the Bible speaks of God as being "above" or "in" the heavens, we don't worry that "above" no longer makes any sense in a heliocentric solar system. Why not? I think it's because these figures of speech are so firmly entrenched in our common language that their symbolism strikes us as normal. We don't think Jesus is "wrong" to speak of sunrises any more than we think of each other as wrong to do so!

    Now imagine that you are teaching a small group of pre-Copernican Christians. You use the phrase "God above" or "sunrise." Someone asks the innocent question, "How does God make the sun rise?" And now you have reached a Rubicon. You could just claim that it's a mystery and just to take it "on faith." But then what would happen if he found out from somewhere else — say, a physics book written by an atheist — that it doesn't work like he (and apparently Jesus) thinks?

    Besides, you have become so used to thinking in Copernican terms that that kind of answer simply no longer occurs to you. You can't get back beyond your world into theirs. So you casually mention that, actually, the earth goes around the sun, and the sun doesn't actually "rise."

    And wow, the looks on their faces!

    Then one of the bright ones figures out that a revolving earth implies no fixed place for "up," and objects that a revolving earth would dislocate heaven. And the Bible is full of references to God "above." And now you rock their world again by telling them that that's right, but not to worry because all that "above" imagery is just spatial imagery for something that's not spatial. And then your student objects that it's misleading for God to use spatial imagery if heaven isn't really above us, and how can she read her Bible anymore?

    And then you realize how we Religious Studies professors feel sometimes.

    You see, you've begun to open up a new world to your pre-Copernican students; and that first glimpse terrifies them. Everything is now so upside-down (if "up" even still means anything!) that they feel fundamentally disoriented. (They aren't fundamentally disoriented, but they can't tell that at the moment.) And they don't know whether their old God still fits in the world you seem to live in. They are no longer sure how to read their Bibles — not because the text has changed, but because the interpretive grid through which they saw it has changed.

    Furthermore, they were comfortable in their old geocentric world. They knew their way around it. It took you only a few minutes to destroy that old world; but you can't orient them to a Copernican world nearly as quickly. In the meantime, they're at sea, and they're really ticked at you for putting them there, and they don't know what's going to happen next.

    So what do you do?"

    (Author unknown; italics mine)

    This illustrates the problem. Now let's have the solutions please...

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  11. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

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    I have to wonder about that guy. He seems to have been able to reconcile things like why Jesus would cry out from the cross that God had forsaken Him. Yet he lost his faith over a questionable translation of Biblical Hebrew words without first having done any research on the reliability of the translation or the alternative meanings of those words. Makes me wonder if he wasn't just looking for a way out.
     
  12. dianetavegia

    dianetavegia Guest

    Four legs, with legs above his feet sounds like a Kangaroo.

    Certainly this 'friend' had more problems in his 'walk with the Lord' that this! Sounds like he was looking for a reason to not believe.

    Diane
     
  13. Paul of Eugene

    Paul of Eugene New Member

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    Or perhaps someone was overly pushy to him about his reaction to the subject. That can happen. We'll eventually get to where these things aren't an intregral part of the salvatin exerience. .
     
  14. npetreley

    npetreley New Member

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    I also don't see the problem with things like the sun rising. What do you call it in the morning? A sunrise. You don't call it an earthturn. Why? Because sunrise describes what you see, and it makes sense to anyone.

    The Bible is filled with descriptions of what we see. It is filled with explanations fit for man to understand. In addition to a great deal of literal statements, the Bible is also filled with metaphor, simile, and other linguistic and poetic devices.

    The world is filled with those who create problems out of simple text by taking things like the sun rising and turning them into literal, scientific statements in order to discredit the Bible.

    Fortunately Christians are filled with the Spirit, Who teaches those who will listen how to discern the difference between language for man's perspective, metaphor, similes, and poetic language, and literal statements.
     
  15. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Thanks for that point about sunrise - that's kinda what I was trying to get at earlier.

    I threw the story about the guy in, not for him to be trashed - none of us know what kind of walk with God he had and it seems presumptious to prejudge him - but to illustrate that this is a deadly serious issue (don't worry - I'm not about to go the same way!)

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  16. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    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
     
  17. Mark Osgatharp

    Mark Osgatharp New Member

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    Matt Black,

    I frankly don't see what your problem is. The best we know about the Leviticus text is that it asserts some animal, unidentified to us, chews the cud. The only way that could be a problem to a man is if he was trying to fabricate one.

    The same with the text about "the brother of Goliath" passage. All that text says is that Elhanan killed a giant named Goliath. Unless you assume that there was only one giant named Goliath, there is no problem at all, except for the man who wants there to be a problem.

    So it is with all your other "problems." There are reasonable solutions to all of them; most of them would never have even raised a question unless someone was looking for a question to raise. The only one that even poses a slight problem to my mind is the cock crowing incident. But I trust, that whereas I don't know everything about what took place that night, the problem is with me, not with the Scriptures.

    The bottom line problem with errantists, athiests, and all manner of unbelievers - it is the assumption that you must know everything about everything before you can simply take God at his word. The root of unbelief is human pride and the high minded assumption that man knows more about things than he actually does. For example, you said:

    "it is that evidence that pushes me towards the preliminary conclusion that either the original or the translation must be in error."

    Why didn't your list of "preliminary conclusions" include the possibility that you didn't know near as much about the matters as you thought you did or that you have totally misunderstood the so called "problem" texts?

    If you take that to mean that I think your problem with the Bible is spiritual, and not intellectual, you are absolutely correct.

    Mark Osgatharp
     
  18. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    So, am I an unbeliever?

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  19. Mark Osgatharp

    Mark Osgatharp New Member

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    I don't know enough about you to know if you are an unbeliever or not. I don't know if you really have problems with the Scripture or if you are just playing intellectual games.

    However, if you actually believe the Scriptures to be in error then, yes, you are an unbeliever, for the basis of Christian faith is the Scriptures.

    Mark Osgatharp
     
  20. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    I assure you I am not playing games here; I am telling you about issues I with which I genuinely struggle. I'm saying I'm not sure whether the Bible is accurate or inaccurate and I am asking you and others for help in showing me that it is accurate. Are you therefore saying that I am not a Christian, that I am not saved and therefore damned to Hell? Answer me, and answer me straight.

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
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