Innerrancy - an open request for help

Matt,

Here is the kind of faith that is required for a man to be justified before God:

Note: Abraham believed against the evidence. Abrham had no doubt but was "fully persauded." And it is required of us that we have the same sort of faith if we expect for God to count us righteous.

Since the Bible is the only basis we have for beleiving any of this and since you say you doubt the Bible, then I say you are not a Christian and you will be damned to hell unless you give up your pride and repent before God and trust His word.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Matt,

On the basis that when you say the Scriptures are not trustworthy, you remove any basis for believing the things you say you believe.

Mark Osgatharp

 

And the problem with inerrantists is that they believe that the Bible must live up to their standards to be taken seriously as a word of God. When the evidence points to difficulties with the text (or especially our interpretation of the text), our response cannot be blind ignorance. Either we take the Bible for what it is or we construct a non-existant document that is inerrant in matters of science, history, etc. One is true to what we actually have--what God has actually provided--the other with a human construction. When you bring a theological presuppostion to the Bible forcing it to be from God's mouth to your eyes, you will inevitably place the Bible and God in your own image (Mark, you have demonstrated this more times than I care to count).

I perfectly agree, but I think our application of such an insight would produce exact opposites. When I assert this notion, I mean that God has not chosen to leave human beings with absolute certainty, but instead with the tools for faith.

Revelation is revelation of God's self, not verbal truths about God; therefore, by its very nature the Bible need not be (cannot be) equal with revelation. In fact, we perceive God's revelation through our interaction with God (the Holy Spirit) as we use all tools available to us (with Scripture being primary, but not exclusive). The only reason someone should presuppose an inerrant scripture is if there were no other choice. That simply isn't the case! Can we know with absolute certitude the entire revelation of God? NO! It is logically impossible! How can one box God up (in leather binding or not)?

And I will remind you, Mark, that above you were admitting that we should presuppose the scripture is inerrant. I ask, why? What philosophical, theological, or biblical grouds can you provide for such an assertion?

Grace and Peace, Danny

 

Matt,

Leviticus chapter 11 was a matter of both doctrine and practice given to the Jews. You say it was in error; therefore you do not believe the Scriptures are trustworthy in matters of doctrine or practice.

Now I anticipate you will start narrowing down the doctrines and practices in which the Bible is trustworthy to the ones you think are important.

Mark Osgatharp

[ October 16, 2003, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Mark Osgatharp ]

 

But God's revelation is so verbal that it is called his word. Whether you like it or not, God has revealed Himself to me through the Scriptures and them exclusively. If He has not done so to you all I can do is say with Jesus,

.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Mark, you haven't answered this point. Are you seriously suggesting that people have to read the Bible from cover to cover and come to a full understanding of it (oh, and not just any old understanding, but one that agrees with yours) before they can be saved? Sounds like another Gospel to me....

Yours in Christ

Matt </font>[/QUOTE]Matt,

I didnt say anything of the sort, and you know it, and if you are going to debate on that sort of dishonest level then I have nothing else to say to you.

Mark Osgatharp

 

You are missing my point. How can a word (without God's being--i.e. without it being an incarnate Word) actually be the full revelation of God? Is God a fact to be grasped or Being to be related with? If God is a fact to be grasped and revealed through scripture, why don't you worship the Bible instead of a living God?

I again contend that it is impossible to know the scriptures and interpret them without help from outside of yourself (the Spirit, tradition, reason, experience, etc.). If this is true to any extent whatsoever, then the scriptures lack the full revelation of God, and cannot be the sole formative factor for theology (of the Bible or otherwise).

Getting back to my actual question (you seem to be avoiding both my questions and Matt's when they are difficult for your hermeneutic). Can you show me any theological, philosophical, or biblical grounds for taking inerrancy as a presupposition?

Grace and Peace, Danny

 

Danny, I don't think inerrancy is a presupposition. However, I don't have a problem with it. If God is perfect, then so is his word (his chosen means to reveal himself). If his word is not perfect, then we have an altered view of God. In fact, that would explain why the apostates, errrrg, moderates prefer to deny inerrancy. They want God in their image.

 

First of all let me repeat my belief, based on faith and my encounter with God through Jesus through His Word, that the Bible is my perfect guide for doctrine and practice.

Now lets think through how God's word actually comes to us today.

It comes through the proclamation of preaching. And none of us think that the preacher is inerrant; not even Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham or Page Patterson.

Side note: Man's hunger to have inerrancy provided on a silver platter leads some to propose such things as an infallible pope or other infallible leader but we baptists "know" that is heresy.

The preacher gets his message to proclaim from his english translation. And none of us think the translation is inerrant; honest translators do a great job, but disagree in particulars.

Side note: Man's hunger to have inerrancy provided on a silver platter leads some to claim KJV or NEW WORLD or other translation as inerrant but most of us sound baptists "know" that is heresy.

The translators work from texts that have been faithfully copied ever since the first century. And we find variations in the manuscripts, showing they were not granted inerrancy in their copying.

Side note: We have some strident voices proclaiming there is an inerrant "textus receptus" without any logical reason for that, except of course they share man's hunger for inerrancy to be handed to us on a silver platter.

And now, we must do some backward projecting and deducting what must have happened with the original manuscripts, because, we just don't have them, only the copies mentioned above.

Could it be that for all the perfection of God's revelation, the human medium of recording that revelation might have been allowed the same small error tolerance that all the other stages we have mentioned manifestedly exhibit? Could it be that man's hunger for inerrancy to be handed him on a silver platter also applies to contaminate his opionion about what happened at this stage, considering the known pattern for what happened in all the other stages?

 

The prophets of God claimed inerrancy for themselves and for one another. I believe it because God has granted me the gift of faith to believe it. If you don't beleive it, far be it from me to try to show something to you that God has obviously hidden from you:

Mark Osgatharp

 

Leviticus 11
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.

There are three basic requirements for the consumption of animals for food under the law:

Parteth the hoof: There must be a division of the foot appendage
Clovenfoot There can be only one split.
Chew the cud “asa gerah” – thoroughly chews the food morsel (as opposed to a scavenger or predator which only rips or tears the morsel enough to get it down its gullet.

Then the Lord gives 3 specific examples of unclean animals:

The camel chews its morsel of food but it does not have a split of any kind in its foot appendage.

The rabbit and hare chew the morsel of food but do not DI-vide the foot appendage into two parts (there are many splits making for a multi-“toed”) creature.

The hog: He has a two-way split hoof but bolts down his food without a thorough chewing.


"four feet"...
“that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;”

We can’t see the forest because of the trees... the grasshopper has four feet that it “goeth upon” and “LEGS to leap with”.


LEGS (Karyim) is dual in the Hebrew meaning there are two of them.

Two for “leaping” and four for “going” that makes six.

HankD

 

Hi Hank! Thank you for your contribution to grasshopper lore. Unfortunately, you have missed the target. You have evidently discovered anew that the following passage does not really pose an insurmountable difficulty, which I quote again here . . . .

The best and easiest way of dealing with the passage so far is to simply consider the manner of going on all fours as an idiom. Of course, even this has scriptural evidence against it, for later in the same book the writer is careful to say it this way, perhaps after reviewing the language above:

Why was it appropriate to especially note in 11:42 that there is a catagory of creeping things with MORE THAN four legs, and yet fail to note it in 11:20-22?

But pay close attention now. What you missed is that the real problem is in Leviticus 11:23

Notice what is referred to here. The insects with legs above the others, which you so casually assert rescue the problem of four legs by adding to the count, are specifically NOT the insects referred to in this verse. This verse is talking about all the insects that have legs ALL EQUAL one to another. And they are said to have four feet. This is the verse to which you need to bend your efforts of inerrancy rescue interpretation. Extra points are awarded the more natural you can make your interpretation seem to be.

 

Hi Mark! Thank you again for continuing to have this discussion. I'd like to ask you a favor.

Consider these two interpretations:

a) The scriptures are innerrant in all things great and small in the original documents

b) The scriptures are inerrant in matters of faith and doctrine, but not necessarily in all things great and small, even in the original documents.

Could you cite some verses in the bible that allow us to choose between these two options? Both of them assert that God had something to do with how scripture came to be and both assert that God's message is there, so the verses you cite should not merely affirm those truths. Thanks . . .

 

Dear paul of Eugene,

Actually all insects have "four" feet to "go upon".
The other 2 appendages serve some other primary purpose and whether "hands" (Proverbs 30:28 - although this is an arachnid) or "legs" the Hebrew is in the dual number (ending with "yim") indicating two of them.

It works for me.

HankD

 

Scripture - Leviticus 11:42 (cited above) - disagrees with this idea. You get zero points for making your explanation sound natural.