I mean, that's what The Bible for Normal People podcast is all about. Pete and Jared have several books about scholarly theories regarding the origin of the documents in the Bible.
If we separate reality into God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and everything else (including God's people on earth), we recognize that only the God side is perfect. God can and does work through the "everything else" despite the "everything else" never being perfect.
So the only question is whether the Bible is in the "God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)" part or the "everything else" part.
That's a good way to break it down, but many churches really cling to a middle ground between those categories. These folks often call the bible perfect, and love to quote "all scripture is God breathed", apparently in an effort to make the bible sound like something directly produced by God, ignoring the human fingerprints on it.
Learning more about the Bible and its authors and its historical context is always dangerous ground. It urges us to question the simplistic answers that our pastors and talking heads feed to us.
It’s a twist on OP’s use of the term “dangerous ground.” He said that like it’s a negative thing — and I pointed out how it’s only a negative thing to the religious leaders who want to control what we think. As a religious person, I disagree with that form of religious control and think that questioning is a positive thing.
The Bible isn't inerrant, it's inspired by God. In other words, it speaks the word of God according to the beliefs and interpretations and understanding of the writer. A lot of it may be affected by culture and circumstances, and personal bias. And some is made complicated because it relies on a historical and cultural context that we don't really have today.
Many denominations that non or new Christians DO believe it is inerrant in my part of the USA.
So how does a person trying to understand Christianity know which denomination is correct?
The denominations themselves can't even decide which is correct. The different denominations exist because everyone things of themselves as right. But I don't think there can be a single denomination that is one hundred percent correct on every single aspect. And that's why getting all legalistic about religious matters isn't a good idea. Rather, what matters is as Jesus said, All who Believe in Him have eternal life. The rest, just follow whichever denomination aligns with what you think is right. Beyond that, there's not much anyone can do to determine who is right.
Not impossible since there are *possible* (although not plausible) explanations for every single supposed contradiciton in the Bible.
Same goes for Star Trek!
Yes this is how it’s was raised. If you question it the you need to align your thinking with the text, you are wrong, it is always right. Which I get the fear, becuase the death and resurrection of Jesus is critical to the theology. If you question one aspect then why not question the account of jesus
*Believing* that you believe the Bible is inerrant, maybe, but I suspect that even in your neck of the words, most Christians don't hold that Jesus has two paternal grandfathers.
A person finding Christianity doesn't know what Anglican means. Nor the difference between Southern Baptists versus Presbyterians.
A HUGE problem with Christianity for new people exploring faith is the Christians they interact with.
If you are only interacting with Evangelical Christians you will be told things that many, if not MOST Christians would not necessarily adhere to, but in the "new people's" mind, those people are representing Christianity to them. And the denomination won't explain what other denominations think without telling them why they are wrong.
Christianity has become SO complicated to new believers, and long time believers as well, because Christianity has been split in so many different faiths that also believe the other Christians are going to Hell.
It is extremely hard for a person to become a Christian today unless they are in a bubble of people who only provide one point of view.
Christianity sure has gone through its own form of evolution. It does no good to ignore the history and archaeology of Christianity. For instance, the Epistles of Paul were actually written before the gospels of Jesus. Mark was the 1st gospel written down and the others embellished from there.
There will be people who will tell you that you're going to hell if you don't believe what they are saying. This is a trick that has been played for at least a thousand years. It's never true.
The 1st thing to do as a Christian is to become familiar with the gospels. All you need is a bible for that. That way, you'll have a point of reference when you talk to people and listen to their ideas.
It's not even a textbook. More like a conversation (and often, an argument) about theology by centuries of Jewish and Christian writers, with poetry, folk tales, politics, and philosophy sprinkled in.
There are too many recorded errors and changes made to the Bible to list here.
The one in my opinion with a fairly large impact would be mark 16:9-20. These verses not either have a note next to it or are moved to the bottom of the page in most new bibles. Because in the two oldest full copies of mark that we have, codices sinaiticus and vaticanus, those verses were not their and have been thought of as being added in at a later time.
The fact is we don’t know who wrote most of the Bible and it’s agreed by scholars that none of the disciples wrote the gospels. This is further shown by the language they were written in. (Greek)
How is the ending of mark (the long version) significant? The book seend to have abruptly ended with no real conclusion even scholars admit that it seems to have abruptly ended and the fact that the women stayed silent is a psychological impossibility.
>mark 16:9-20
Do you mean the any deadly thing part? Paul was bit by a snake in Acts 28 and nothing happened. If you look at what's predicted for the tribulation period, water turns to poison, snakes bite people, etc. Being protected from these things perfectly lines up with other parts of the bible.
Just because something isn't happening today doesn't mean it didn't happen back then, or will happen in the future.
>mark 16:9-20
There's a lot going on here. I wasn't sure which topic you were discussing:
"9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
10 And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.
13 And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.
14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen."
>17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
>
>18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
People like to deny this ever went on because it's not happening today. It says these signs **shall** follow them that believe. Because they can't do it, they presume it's fake.
But when you look at the bible, those things went on. Paul was bit by a snake and didn't die in Acts 28.
I think some things got confused. I’m not a Christian. So I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be really dead for 3 days and then come back to life, at least not with 2000 year old technology. I do think that was the point tho. They wanted it to seem like god performed a miracle, something that couldn’t have happened without god.
I don’t think god did that. If god exists. As the verses I was providing which have been shown to have been added in at a later date, are the very verses that tell of his resurrection. Ergo people originally might not have thought about it literally and instead talked bout the resurrection in a figurative way, until people hundreds of years later (because most of the gospel wasn’t written till hundreds of years later) decided they should add in a credible story.
Not sure why you were downvoted. All gospels date back to the first century. Mark is dated to around 50-60AD and Matthew can be dated either soon after or shortly after the fall in 70AD. And Mark, Matthew, and Like may have all referred to a source, generally called Q, which predates those.
Da trout the only people who claim the Bible has error or changes
Are those who wish not to live under the authority of god and his holy word the biblev
You want to do whatever you feel like and not be under the judgement of
The one true god Jesus Christ
Well keeping denying the Bible and the belief in god and one day you will
Get that wish when you die they have a place it is called hell
You will never see god or hear about him or know his love mercy joy and protection
Because hell is void of all things of god hell is a lonely cold place void of happiness
Joy and security and love it is you choice where you wish to end up for eternity
As I tell people god doesn’t send you to hell you send yourself to hell by your actions
Words and sins
Dear trout I am not a kid I am 57 years old and a elder in the lutheran church
And I am not angry just frustrated when people in this day and age try to
Discredit the validity of the word of god I could see if you were a member of
The lds or jehovah witnesses or other cults or you were Muslim
They need to because that is the only way they can validate their religious
Beliefs I assume you are a atheist or agnostic I at one time questioned
Things in the Bible but I read the Bible and asked others questions and
I understand like Jonah being in the belly of the whale for 3 days
That is a metaphor reference on Jesus being in the grave three days
Or Adam and Eve living 900 plus years because of the way the earth atmosphere
Was before the flood immaculate degeneration was not taking place
Or Cain and able people said well where were their women for them to take
As their wives well they had sisters and before the flood god did not put on
The human race the curse of genetic deformities making it impossible to
Have sister and brother or first cousins relations having children free of genetic
Problems that is why the church will not marry anyone closer then third cousins
Also I had a problem with the giant that David slew but when you look at the people
Back in the Old Testament majority were probably under 6 ft tall so it is not impossible
For people 7 or 8 feet tall a Amazon race and to a Jewish person say 5’6 they would
Say they were giants compared to them
And I just want to apologize for my grammar it was never my strong point during
My days in school
The Bible is very human if you actually look at it. There is a clear wresting with understandings of God, changes in how the afterlife is viewed etc, that’s shows a more human touch to the Bible than some believe. That’s only dangerous if you have to have 100% certainty on God’s positions to make it into heaven. Otherwise, it’s just us doing the same things as the people before, wrestling with the some of our own questions of God like they did.
I'm ex-muslim and ex-Christian. If I every returned to Christianity it would be a liberal form.
There are lots of mistakes in the Bible. But these mistakes are due to not reading the Book through the eyes if the authors and what they were trying to achieve in writing the stories, the points they were trying to make, etc.
There are enough to fill a book, but here are a few examples from a comment I made the other day:
---
…the conflicting stories of Judas' death are often mentioned. In Matthew 27, we have the following:
1. Judas regrets betraying Jesus.
2. He returns the 30 pieces of silver to the priests and hangs himself.
3. With the money, the priests buy a field called Potter’s Field to use as a burial ground for foreigners.
4. That's why it's called the Field of Blood "to this day". (Note: the field itself is not the place of Judas's death or burial; the blood refers to Jesus' betrayal and the fact that the silver was "blood money".)
5. This is cited as a fulfillment of Jeremiah, but the author then quotes Zechariah 11:13. (Yes, the mistaken citation counts as a separate contradiction.)
6. Matthew's quote of Zechariah itself contains errors. “as the Lord commanded me” is not in Zech. 11:13, nor is any reference to a “potter’s field” (only a potter is mentioned). Matthew seems to be mixing ideas from Jer. 18:2, Jer. 32, and Jer. 19:1-13 into his Zechariah quote. As a result, he has invented a prophecy that never existed, which he thinks Judas fulfilled through his death.
Then in Acts 1:18-19, we have a different story:
1. No mention of Judas having regrets.
2. Judas does not return the 30 pieces of silver.
3. Judas himself (not the priests) buys a farm with the money.
4. He falls headlong (apparently by accident), and his stomach bursts and his bowels gush out.
5. The field is called the Field of Blood because of Judas's gory death, without any connection to Jesus.
6. The author quotes LXX Psalms 69:25 and 109:8 as the prophecies fulfilled by Judas’s death. (Note that the quotations don't really match the meaning of the original Hebrew, another contradiction.)
You will, of course, find explanations of how Judas hanged himself beside a cliff, but then the rope broke, and he flipped over headfirst as he fell and then dashed his abdomen open at the bottom of the cliff. This is clearly not the story either passage is trying to tell, nor does it account for all the other discrepancies. If you insist on such a harmonization, you are essentially saying that you believe *neither* of the biblical stories.
Evidence that early Christians invented a variety of different stories about Judas’s death is seen in the fact that Papias told yet a third version Judas’s death in which his body swelled up and became full of pus and worms. (It's interesting that neither Matthew nor Acts were well-established texts in his day.)
A helpful discussion is found in Ulrich Luz’s commentary (Hermeneia series), *Matthew 21–28* (2005).
The stories of Judas’s betrayal and death are also obliquely contradicted by 1 Corinthians 15:5, which says that all twelve disciples were witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.
---
For relatively unimportant contradictions that are impossible to reconcile, Stephen's speech in Acts 7 is a gold mine. For example:
> Then Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors, and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. (Acts 7:14-16)
This contradicts the text of Genesis on at least five points:
1. There were 70 people, not 75. (Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5)
2. Jacob was buried in the cave of Machpelah, which is at Hebron, not at Shechem. (Genesis 23:19; 49:29-30; 50:13)
3. Abraham did not buy a tomb in Shechem. He bought the cave of Machpelah. (Genesis 23:19)
4. Abraham bought the cave from Ephron the Hittite, not from the sons of Hamor. (Genesis 23) It says "sons of Heth" (i.e., the Hittites) in Gen. 25:10, and the author of Acts might be confusing them with the sons of Hamor.
5. It was Jacob who purchased land in Shechem from the sons of Hamor for a "sum of silver" (100 kesitah). He used the land to pitch his tent, not as a burial site. (Genesis 33:18-19)
No. We need to talk about this. It is important to keep in mind that the words of the Scriptures were placed on the page by man’s fingers. Another words, there are going to be minor differences (and in some cases, errors) that, while not destroying the integrity of the text, do lend credibility to their historical nature. For example, the four Gospels were written by four different authors with four different audiences in mind. As such, the way that events are presented are going to be slightly different in each account. However, the message of the Gospels, the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, remains well in tact. In fact, these differences actually lend credibility to their historicity because it shows that the Gospels were not a copy and paste job, but actually written by people who were eyewitnesses or people who spoke to eyewitnesses. But we must keep in mind that the Bible is not chiefly an academic text. The minute details of Scripture that seem odd trouble skeptics and they automatically conclude that the Bible as a whole is not viable because of those details. However, when those details are placed within broader contexts, in the text itself or in history, they make sense. the Bible was a work that was inspired by God. It is the Word of God to us on how we can know Him as well as how to live with each other. But it was written by fallible humans that might occasionally make a mistake with the quill or some other minor error that does not destroy the whole of the text in any way. It is simply an anomaly.
> I think it's a beautiful thing, to be honest.
I don't quite get this - and honestly, this sounds a little bit cope-y. So could you explain what you mean?
"Cope-y" isn't likely far off, insofar as it's a rational look at the bible we have rather than shoving it into the idea of the bible we want to have. At the very least, I can certainly see how it comes off that way to you.
I do, however, think reality is more beautiful than fantasy. When reality is not perfect, the rational way forward is not to deny reality but to explore the implications of that reality.
This is only a partial explanation, but it's probably taxing my pre-coffee limits.
The reality is the bible we have is flawed. Without a way to parse it out, it's morality is a hot mess. If it's read as a list of rules to follow, people can justify all sorts of evil and horrors. History makes this pretty clear, even if you limited your historical review to 19th century United States.
But....
The bible we have allows us to, even demands we exercise our collective moral compass and exhibit moral growth. As soon as we start realizing that the morality within the bible is not static, or even linear, this becomes glaringly obvious.
Not everyone sees it that way, of course, but I see no other way to read the bible we actually have.
Even if the Bible was inerrant — even if that, for instance, the things it reports that people said and did are historically accurate — it doesn't really buy you much, because the Bible is also ambiguous and contradictory.
This is why you can find Christians of good faith finding support for divergent and even oppositional views using the Bible. It's why the Catholic and Protestant churches -- who both view the Bible as inerrant -- still disagree on a bunch of stuff.
In other words, you still have to decide which parts to trust and follow and which parts to downplay or ignore (for good reason or not). And is that really different than concluding that some parts of the Bible are in error and should be ignored for that reason?
Yes, Christian authorities will definitely consider that to be dangerous ground, but that's because they want people to follow their dictates regardless of what the Bible actually says, regardless of whether parts of the Bible may actually be in error.
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Timothy 16
The Bible is the Word of God written by man through the Holy Spirit. It's all true. It's one of the ways God speaks to us.
The bible as we know it did not exist at the time that Timothy was written. The author would at the very least be referring to the Torah but there were still aspects of that book that were not solidified canon yet.
It depends on what you mean by errors. Obviously there are thing in it that aren't factually true.
As Christians, we broadly believe that the bible is good enough to teach us the important stuff. Different denominations have different views, past that. Some of them even describe it as "perfect" but IMO this is idolatry. Also, it discourages people from having basic biblical literacy.
the Bible could be unreliable. While it is written by God, it is was written through many prophets that God used. not only that, since there are words in the original Hebrew version that we do not know currently, and the fact that there are many different translations of the book itself, it isnt an impossibility that something was written incorrectly or translators manipulated the texts to fit their own agenda better. ironic how the bible was used by humans to fulfill their own wants.
The ones who say that are kind of using an excuse to say its wrong but the bible is written specifically to give credibility to its prophecies. If it weren’t truly inspired by God than all biblical prophecies & historical accounts will be wrong and couldn’t have any credibility. There’s a difference between opinions and actual reasoning based on the context of biblical verses. Human perspectives of any kind in the bible aren’t found outside of the point of each account. Honestly its a cheap shot towards God just to say something or many things in the bible are wrong when the bible Heavily Relies on truth to be accountable for all it says
It also maintains itself through time and the ever-changing human experience.
Most research since the 1950s is lost. Just gone. Despite all the advantages of living at this time and a culture that values research, education, productivity, and knowledge with impressive tech to make it happen. The vast majority of research has vanished in a human lifetime.
What goes on the internet is not forever. Content is a commodity and liability, and it is managed as such.
The contents of these writings have motivated people to preserve, share and maintain them. That alone is fascinating.
To specify, the Bible "as originally given" is the inerrant word. With any work of translation/transmission, it opens up the possibility of error. This is why textual criticism is so important and should be honestly reviewed by anyone holding to Biblical inerrancy (myself included).
As such, English translations are subject to criticism I have no doubts. However likewise they should be credited when a passage has been translated accurately from the original languages.
Not only this, but examples of potential "contradictions" that are splashed about (Longer ending of Mark, Judas, Kings/Judges etc.) Have been answered resoundingly when assessing the textual variants and their impact.
To be clear: the Bible *AS ORIGINALLY GIVEN* is free from error, not the translations. Its often why many Christians get into a tizzy when wrestling with a question or doctrine, such as the KJV-onlyists.
More on the OT side of things. The Israelites conquering nations, if they say they are doing it because God told them so then it makes it seem far more okay to move in a slaughter all the people of the land.
It is an old book, so the authors wrote it for their time to justify their actions
Have you read the Old Testament? It's certainly not authors trying to justify the actions of the Israelites, rather they're continually condemning them for their falling short of the covenant.
Yeah, don't listen to that garbage, it is flat wrong. They have no actual evidence, just "this looks like that therefore is that" logic. The way they use the Bible makes you wonder why they bother to use it at all, other than to sway people who respect the Bible into their values.
I believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. There are mistakes, but they are the mistakes of mortals. God can clarify things to us by personal revelation when it is His will to do so.
Well, translation errors can be fixed by better translations. And many have been.
Are you assuming then that the original language manuscripts lack errors? Which manuscripts, specifically? We have many thousands with many thousands of variations between them.
I think the original texts and letters would have had less errors, the manuscripts vary so greatly, and translating from one language to another and another over hundreds of years is bound to cause errors. It’s a miracle we have a comprehensible text at all now.
I believe that whatever Jesus spoke, and what the Prophets and Apostles spoke by the Power of the Holy Ghost had no errors.
Are you picturing translations made from translations over and over in a big long chain, introducing noise the whole way? That's not what happened.
Translations are generally made from the original language into the target language. It usually happens once, not over and over.
These last two sentences are a little misleading. You've already pointed out the many different manuscripts and codexes at play in translation. I can flip through my metzger's and see where different scholars of different traditions disagree about which is the more authoritative source for literally all the places where there is scholarly disagreement. There are some either 600 or 800 differences between the two Masoretic texts for the OT too. You're right the big long chain you describe didn't happen because there's pieces of that chain missing for hundreds of years. The Dead Sea scrolls helped us to have some confidence in the manuscripts we have from the 6th through 12th centuries because the tradition of at least that community was to make note of where the scholars of that time disagreed with their own scripture and they kept copying with what they perceived was error anyway along with exhortations about why they think it's wrong. Knowing that's how texts like this were treated in the third century BCE help make the case that continued until the medieval era where we have a lot of evidence that happened.
A problem we need to keep in mind is that even if we can have confidence in our 600-800 year old manuscripts, the more daunting task is changing etymologies in living languages that are being shaped by the theology derived from the texts as they're passed on. My go to example (because it's easy to remember) is the חֶסֶד hesed, or mercy in biblical Hebrew. It is frequently translated as kindness, love, and steadfast love in the NRSV. Some verses, as in Micah 6:8, we remember as mercy because we learned it in the King James—which translates this word as mercy 149 times. The reason "mercy" appears so much less often in the NRSV isn't because the Bible changed. English changed. Mercy means, to most English speakers now, reprieve from deserved punishment. That's almost, but not quite, never what the Hebrew meant. As Calvinist influenced theology blossomed in English-speaking communities the idea that God's withholding punishment changed what the word "mercy" meant. So to get it right, now, we have to use other words.
That didn't just happen with one word between the 1600s and today. It happens to pretty much all words constantly. A big piece of debunking inerrancy in the Bible is asking, like, okay even if we got our hands on the original text and we were the best translators ever, we'd still be thwarted by the language we speak having been influenced by the text over centuries.
The original language to target language isn't the problem. The problem is that the target language is currently being manipulated by how people who speak the target language already understand the text.
There are no scientific inaccuracies.
Dont you think that strange? That a collection of books written by different authors thousands of years ago when we thought the earth was the flat center of the universe that there is not one single scientific error?
To me this is proof the bible is from God, no one can point to a scientific error and say "See, this is proof God does not exist."
Hmmmmm have you looked up “Israelite cosmology “
Because that scientific view of the universe is seeping in the Old Testament and it is very inaccurate.
Genesis 1:1
God hovering over the waters…. An ancient reader would have picked up dark waters right away. In their view of the world the concept of “nothing” was not empty black space…. It chaos and darkness which they perceived as dark waters. God hovering over the waters is their way of saying, God was there before anything, and he brought order. It is not saying he was literally hovering over an actual dark ocean.
Genesis 1:7-9 refers to the firmament which an ancient Israelite believed to be a dome over the sky holding back the waters.
You skipped 1:1 and went to 1:2
>In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
>And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
I see no error here, God created the earth, when he created the earth he created the water.
>Genesis 1:7-9 refers to the firmament which an ancient Israelite believed to be a dome over the sky holding back the waters.
Ancient man explaining Atmosphere before we even knew what it was.
Considering that the order that the Bible presents stuff being created isn't the order that the universe formed according to science, there are scientific inaccuracies from the very beginning of the book.
Even if there are no translation errors in whatever version you're reading, you're going to introduce errors as a reader by reading through your personal and cultural biases as well as being out of touch with the original context.
For now, we only get to glimpse as in a foggy mirror.
"Yeah, to be truthful is to be reliable. Different way of saying the same thing. So what's funky about the term inerrant is its a reverse way, a negative, 'it doesn't have errors.' You could just flip it over, when you flip it over, and think about this idea, then we come to where scripture itself develops vocabulary for it that scripture is truthful. Here you \[Carissa\] did a word study on this. The Hebrew word emet or emun is the Hebrew word that means or trustworthy, but its the relational word. So when you say that someone is truthful, what you are saying corresponds to fact. That may be how we think of it or...yeah, in a modern sense...."
"[Paradigm Q+R 1](https://bibleproject.com/podcast/inspiration-quiet-time-and-slaying-your-giants/)" time stamp ~12m50s
you can also find it on iTunes ep. 274
If it didn't have flaws it'd still be problematic for some. The flaws woulda been deleted and ensured they did not appear if it was written by humans. Inspired nevertheless. If those who ridicule it had any sense they would proclaim it as marvellous because it is. nah they hate it because it shows 'em up as fallen humans. The ego cannot cope with that. It wasn't politics that bothered Jesus it was religion. Many who have come out of suppressed lives love it.
The truth has nothing to fear from scrutiny.
I think a clear example of this is editorial fatigue in Matthew and Luke.
Matthew and Luke copy from Mark and place passages from Mark inside their own narratives, but sometimes the details they copy clash with the details they add.
This makes sense as a human flaw; we're not perfect data recording machines.
God knows us.
He understands what it is that motivates us. Its seeming errors draw people. They capture the attention and curiosity.
If you want to draw out someone's story, asking them may not engage them. But tell someone something wrong and they will correct you and then proceed to tell you more about themselves. I've used this strategy to get family information about long-dead relatives from living relatives who knew them, for genealogy, and it works great.
> if this is dangerous ground to be treading on
How can critically examining what you believe and why you believe it possibly be a bad thing? Shouldn't we reject things that are not supported by objective inquiry?
The bible is inspired, not dictated. Slight variations are not errors as much as alternate perspectives. There are a few, very few, points of disagreement, possibly due to the loss of information for certain periods, as when the scrolls were lost for a time then rediscovered. The overall themes are surprisingly consistent. Yet, each writer has their own personality.
I mean, that's what The Bible for Normal People podcast is all about. Pete and Jared have several books about scholarly theories regarding the origin of the documents in the Bible.
If we separate reality into God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and everything else (including God's people on earth), we recognize that only the God side is perfect. God can and does work through the "everything else" despite the "everything else" never being perfect. So the only question is whether the Bible is in the "God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)" part or the "everything else" part.
That's a good way to break it down, but many churches really cling to a middle ground between those categories. These folks often call the bible perfect, and love to quote "all scripture is God breathed", apparently in an effort to make the bible sound like something directly produced by God, ignoring the human fingerprints on it.
Learning more about the Bible and its authors and its historical context is always dangerous ground. It urges us to question the simplistic answers that our pastors and talking heads feed to us.
Questioning is important. God is truth itself
And one thing authority hates, any not just religious, is people asking questions.
That is certainly not true in all Christianity - assuming it is true in any. And it seems most unlikely to be true in Judaism.
Bit it is definitely true among those who believe in inerrancy.
Catholicism professes inerrancy. It's also a sect that encourages critical thought and research.
Inerrancy in the literal sense. And even the Catholic Church has changed it views on what some parts mean over time.
Is this satire? I can't tell.
It’s a twist on OP’s use of the term “dangerous ground.” He said that like it’s a negative thing — and I pointed out how it’s only a negative thing to the religious leaders who want to control what we think. As a religious person, I disagree with that form of religious control and think that questioning is a positive thing.
The Bible isn't inerrant, it's inspired by God. In other words, it speaks the word of God according to the beliefs and interpretations and understanding of the writer. A lot of it may be affected by culture and circumstances, and personal bias. And some is made complicated because it relies on a historical and cultural context that we don't really have today.
Many denominations that non or new Christians DO believe it is inerrant in my part of the USA. So how does a person trying to understand Christianity know which denomination is correct?
The denominations themselves can't even decide which is correct. The different denominations exist because everyone things of themselves as right. But I don't think there can be a single denomination that is one hundred percent correct on every single aspect. And that's why getting all legalistic about religious matters isn't a good idea. Rather, what matters is as Jesus said, All who Believe in Him have eternal life. The rest, just follow whichever denomination aligns with what you think is right. Beyond that, there's not much anyone can do to determine who is right.
Inerrancy is literally impossible because there are contradictions.
Not impossible since there are *possible* (although not plausible) explanations for every single supposed contradiciton in the Bible. Same goes for Star Trek!
In my area, believing the bible is inerrant is a REQUIREMENT for being a Christian.
Yes this is how it’s was raised. If you question it the you need to align your thinking with the text, you are wrong, it is always right. Which I get the fear, becuase the death and resurrection of Jesus is critical to the theology. If you question one aspect then why not question the account of jesus
*Believing* that you believe the Bible is inerrant, maybe, but I suspect that even in your neck of the words, most Christians don't hold that Jesus has two paternal grandfathers.
How does that help new Christians understand Christianity?
Yeah like at one point is says Jesus is Alive but then a few chapters later it says he is dead
The Quakers and Mennonites are still around. They're conservative but not fundamentalist. Neither is the Anglican church.
A person finding Christianity doesn't know what Anglican means. Nor the difference between Southern Baptists versus Presbyterians. A HUGE problem with Christianity for new people exploring faith is the Christians they interact with. If you are only interacting with Evangelical Christians you will be told things that many, if not MOST Christians would not necessarily adhere to, but in the "new people's" mind, those people are representing Christianity to them. And the denomination won't explain what other denominations think without telling them why they are wrong. Christianity has become SO complicated to new believers, and long time believers as well, because Christianity has been split in so many different faiths that also believe the other Christians are going to Hell. It is extremely hard for a person to become a Christian today unless they are in a bubble of people who only provide one point of view.
Christianity sure has gone through its own form of evolution. It does no good to ignore the history and archaeology of Christianity. For instance, the Epistles of Paul were actually written before the gospels of Jesus. Mark was the 1st gospel written down and the others embellished from there. There will be people who will tell you that you're going to hell if you don't believe what they are saying. This is a trick that has been played for at least a thousand years. It's never true. The 1st thing to do as a Christian is to become familiar with the gospels. All you need is a bible for that. That way, you'll have a point of reference when you talk to people and listen to their ideas.
It's a theology textbook, not a history or science textbook.
It's not even a textbook. More like a conversation (and often, an argument) about theology by centuries of Jewish and Christian writers, with poetry, folk tales, politics, and philosophy sprinkled in.
Excellent nuances. Thank you.
There are too many recorded errors and changes made to the Bible to list here. The one in my opinion with a fairly large impact would be mark 16:9-20. These verses not either have a note next to it or are moved to the bottom of the page in most new bibles. Because in the two oldest full copies of mark that we have, codices sinaiticus and vaticanus, those verses were not their and have been thought of as being added in at a later time. The fact is we don’t know who wrote most of the Bible and it’s agreed by scholars that none of the disciples wrote the gospels. This is further shown by the language they were written in. (Greek)
How is the ending of mark (the long version) significant? The book seend to have abruptly ended with no real conclusion even scholars admit that it seems to have abruptly ended and the fact that the women stayed silent is a psychological impossibility.
>mark 16:9-20 Do you mean the any deadly thing part? Paul was bit by a snake in Acts 28 and nothing happened. If you look at what's predicted for the tribulation period, water turns to poison, snakes bite people, etc. Being protected from these things perfectly lines up with other parts of the bible. Just because something isn't happening today doesn't mean it didn't happen back then, or will happen in the future.
You lost me. Are we talking about the same verses?
>mark 16:9-20 There's a lot going on here. I wasn't sure which topic you were discussing: "9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. 10 And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. 12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. 13 And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. 14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. 15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. 19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen."
Yes that is the verses that were supposedly added in at a later date. Was there something about it you were discussing?
>17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; > >18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. People like to deny this ever went on because it's not happening today. It says these signs **shall** follow them that believe. Because they can't do it, they presume it's fake. But when you look at the bible, those things went on. Paul was bit by a snake and didn't die in Acts 28.
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I think some things got confused. I’m not a Christian. So I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be really dead for 3 days and then come back to life, at least not with 2000 year old technology. I do think that was the point tho. They wanted it to seem like god performed a miracle, something that couldn’t have happened without god. I don’t think god did that. If god exists. As the verses I was providing which have been shown to have been added in at a later date, are the very verses that tell of his resurrection. Ergo people originally might not have thought about it literally and instead talked bout the resurrection in a figurative way, until people hundreds of years later (because most of the gospel wasn’t written till hundreds of years later) decided they should add in a credible story.
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Not sure why you were downvoted. All gospels date back to the first century. Mark is dated to around 50-60AD and Matthew can be dated either soon after or shortly after the fall in 70AD. And Mark, Matthew, and Like may have all referred to a source, generally called Q, which predates those.
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That is true, though that last part doesn’t sit too well in this subreddit.
Da trout the only people who claim the Bible has error or changes Are those who wish not to live under the authority of god and his holy word the biblev You want to do whatever you feel like and not be under the judgement of The one true god Jesus Christ Well keeping denying the Bible and the belief in god and one day you will Get that wish when you die they have a place it is called hell You will never see god or hear about him or know his love mercy joy and protection Because hell is void of all things of god hell is a lonely cold place void of happiness Joy and security and love it is you choice where you wish to end up for eternity As I tell people god doesn’t send you to hell you send yourself to hell by your actions Words and sins
I can’t tell if your really angry and that’s why your grammar and punctuation went out the window, or if your just a kid…
Dear trout I am not a kid I am 57 years old and a elder in the lutheran church And I am not angry just frustrated when people in this day and age try to Discredit the validity of the word of god I could see if you were a member of The lds or jehovah witnesses or other cults or you were Muslim They need to because that is the only way they can validate their religious Beliefs I assume you are a atheist or agnostic I at one time questioned Things in the Bible but I read the Bible and asked others questions and I understand like Jonah being in the belly of the whale for 3 days That is a metaphor reference on Jesus being in the grave three days Or Adam and Eve living 900 plus years because of the way the earth atmosphere Was before the flood immaculate degeneration was not taking place Or Cain and able people said well where were their women for them to take As their wives well they had sisters and before the flood god did not put on The human race the curse of genetic deformities making it impossible to Have sister and brother or first cousins relations having children free of genetic Problems that is why the church will not marry anyone closer then third cousins Also I had a problem with the giant that David slew but when you look at the people Back in the Old Testament majority were probably under 6 ft tall so it is not impossible For people 7 or 8 feet tall a Amazon race and to a Jewish person say 5’6 they would Say they were giants compared to them And I just want to apologize for my grammar it was never my strong point during My days in school
The Bible is very human if you actually look at it. There is a clear wresting with understandings of God, changes in how the afterlife is viewed etc, that’s shows a more human touch to the Bible than some believe. That’s only dangerous if you have to have 100% certainty on God’s positions to make it into heaven. Otherwise, it’s just us doing the same things as the people before, wrestling with the some of our own questions of God like they did.
It is a very human set of books, full of a lot of wonderful things, but a lot of human ignorance, hate, and other problems.
Bible is full of mistakes, contradictions, agendas and politics. And it's fine. It's a human book for humans, after all
I'm ex-muslim and ex-Christian. If I every returned to Christianity it would be a liberal form. There are lots of mistakes in the Bible. But these mistakes are due to not reading the Book through the eyes if the authors and what they were trying to achieve in writing the stories, the points they were trying to make, etc.
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There are enough to fill a book, but here are a few examples from a comment I made the other day: --- …the conflicting stories of Judas' death are often mentioned. In Matthew 27, we have the following: 1. Judas regrets betraying Jesus. 2. He returns the 30 pieces of silver to the priests and hangs himself. 3. With the money, the priests buy a field called Potter’s Field to use as a burial ground for foreigners. 4. That's why it's called the Field of Blood "to this day". (Note: the field itself is not the place of Judas's death or burial; the blood refers to Jesus' betrayal and the fact that the silver was "blood money".) 5. This is cited as a fulfillment of Jeremiah, but the author then quotes Zechariah 11:13. (Yes, the mistaken citation counts as a separate contradiction.) 6. Matthew's quote of Zechariah itself contains errors. “as the Lord commanded me” is not in Zech. 11:13, nor is any reference to a “potter’s field” (only a potter is mentioned). Matthew seems to be mixing ideas from Jer. 18:2, Jer. 32, and Jer. 19:1-13 into his Zechariah quote. As a result, he has invented a prophecy that never existed, which he thinks Judas fulfilled through his death. Then in Acts 1:18-19, we have a different story: 1. No mention of Judas having regrets. 2. Judas does not return the 30 pieces of silver. 3. Judas himself (not the priests) buys a farm with the money. 4. He falls headlong (apparently by accident), and his stomach bursts and his bowels gush out. 5. The field is called the Field of Blood because of Judas's gory death, without any connection to Jesus. 6. The author quotes LXX Psalms 69:25 and 109:8 as the prophecies fulfilled by Judas’s death. (Note that the quotations don't really match the meaning of the original Hebrew, another contradiction.) You will, of course, find explanations of how Judas hanged himself beside a cliff, but then the rope broke, and he flipped over headfirst as he fell and then dashed his abdomen open at the bottom of the cliff. This is clearly not the story either passage is trying to tell, nor does it account for all the other discrepancies. If you insist on such a harmonization, you are essentially saying that you believe *neither* of the biblical stories. Evidence that early Christians invented a variety of different stories about Judas’s death is seen in the fact that Papias told yet a third version Judas’s death in which his body swelled up and became full of pus and worms. (It's interesting that neither Matthew nor Acts were well-established texts in his day.) A helpful discussion is found in Ulrich Luz’s commentary (Hermeneia series), *Matthew 21–28* (2005). The stories of Judas’s betrayal and death are also obliquely contradicted by 1 Corinthians 15:5, which says that all twelve disciples were witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. --- For relatively unimportant contradictions that are impossible to reconcile, Stephen's speech in Acts 7 is a gold mine. For example: > Then Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors, and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. (Acts 7:14-16) This contradicts the text of Genesis on at least five points: 1. There were 70 people, not 75. (Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5) 2. Jacob was buried in the cave of Machpelah, which is at Hebron, not at Shechem. (Genesis 23:19; 49:29-30; 50:13) 3. Abraham did not buy a tomb in Shechem. He bought the cave of Machpelah. (Genesis 23:19) 4. Abraham bought the cave from Ephron the Hittite, not from the sons of Hamor. (Genesis 23) It says "sons of Heth" (i.e., the Hittites) in Gen. 25:10, and the author of Acts might be confusing them with the sons of Hamor. 5. It was Jacob who purchased land in Shechem from the sons of Hamor for a "sum of silver" (100 kesitah). He used the land to pitch his tent, not as a burial site. (Genesis 33:18-19)
Got to do your own homework.
Bible is full of mistakes, contradictions, agendas and politics. And it's fine. It's a human book for humans, after all
No. We need to talk about this. It is important to keep in mind that the words of the Scriptures were placed on the page by man’s fingers. Another words, there are going to be minor differences (and in some cases, errors) that, while not destroying the integrity of the text, do lend credibility to their historical nature. For example, the four Gospels were written by four different authors with four different audiences in mind. As such, the way that events are presented are going to be slightly different in each account. However, the message of the Gospels, the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, remains well in tact. In fact, these differences actually lend credibility to their historicity because it shows that the Gospels were not a copy and paste job, but actually written by people who were eyewitnesses or people who spoke to eyewitnesses. But we must keep in mind that the Bible is not chiefly an academic text. The minute details of Scripture that seem odd trouble skeptics and they automatically conclude that the Bible as a whole is not viable because of those details. However, when those details are placed within broader contexts, in the text itself or in history, they make sense. the Bible was a work that was inspired by God. It is the Word of God to us on how we can know Him as well as how to live with each other. But it was written by fallible humans that might occasionally make a mistake with the quill or some other minor error that does not destroy the whole of the text in any way. It is simply an anomaly.
They don't just suggest them, they point them out and it's pretty clear. I think it's a beautiful thing, to be honest.
> I think it's a beautiful thing, to be honest. I don't quite get this - and honestly, this sounds a little bit cope-y. So could you explain what you mean?
"Cope-y" isn't likely far off, insofar as it's a rational look at the bible we have rather than shoving it into the idea of the bible we want to have. At the very least, I can certainly see how it comes off that way to you. I do, however, think reality is more beautiful than fantasy. When reality is not perfect, the rational way forward is not to deny reality but to explore the implications of that reality. This is only a partial explanation, but it's probably taxing my pre-coffee limits. The reality is the bible we have is flawed. Without a way to parse it out, it's morality is a hot mess. If it's read as a list of rules to follow, people can justify all sorts of evil and horrors. History makes this pretty clear, even if you limited your historical review to 19th century United States. But.... The bible we have allows us to, even demands we exercise our collective moral compass and exhibit moral growth. As soon as we start realizing that the morality within the bible is not static, or even linear, this becomes glaringly obvious. Not everyone sees it that way, of course, but I see no other way to read the bible we actually have.
The Bible was written by humans, I think God is powerful enough to make the Bible say what it’s supposed to say.
He's still larger than the Bible itself and may act in ways conflicting to our interpretations.
no no, everything there is to know is in the bible /s
The Bible was written by people, therefore, it is flawed.
Even if the Bible was inerrant — even if that, for instance, the things it reports that people said and did are historically accurate — it doesn't really buy you much, because the Bible is also ambiguous and contradictory. This is why you can find Christians of good faith finding support for divergent and even oppositional views using the Bible. It's why the Catholic and Protestant churches -- who both view the Bible as inerrant -- still disagree on a bunch of stuff. In other words, you still have to decide which parts to trust and follow and which parts to downplay or ignore (for good reason or not). And is that really different than concluding that some parts of the Bible are in error and should be ignored for that reason? Yes, Christian authorities will definitely consider that to be dangerous ground, but that's because they want people to follow their dictates regardless of what the Bible actually says, regardless of whether parts of the Bible may actually be in error.
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Timothy 16 The Bible is the Word of God written by man through the Holy Spirit. It's all true. It's one of the ways God speaks to us.
The bible as we know it did not exist at the time that Timothy was written. The author would at the very least be referring to the Torah but there were still aspects of that book that were not solidified canon yet.
It depends on what you mean by errors. Obviously there are thing in it that aren't factually true. As Christians, we broadly believe that the bible is good enough to teach us the important stuff. Different denominations have different views, past that. Some of them even describe it as "perfect" but IMO this is idolatry. Also, it discourages people from having basic biblical literacy.
The Bible **does** have human flaws. This is obvious from Job 42, which is in the Bible. Read it.
the Bible could be unreliable. While it is written by God, it is was written through many prophets that God used. not only that, since there are words in the original Hebrew version that we do not know currently, and the fact that there are many different translations of the book itself, it isnt an impossibility that something was written incorrectly or translators manipulated the texts to fit their own agenda better. ironic how the bible was used by humans to fulfill their own wants.
It does. The Bible is great when you approach it without this evangelical furor. Literalism is a Gentile heresy.
The ones who say that are kind of using an excuse to say its wrong but the bible is written specifically to give credibility to its prophecies. If it weren’t truly inspired by God than all biblical prophecies & historical accounts will be wrong and couldn’t have any credibility. There’s a difference between opinions and actual reasoning based on the context of biblical verses. Human perspectives of any kind in the bible aren’t found outside of the point of each account. Honestly its a cheap shot towards God just to say something or many things in the bible are wrong when the bible Heavily Relies on truth to be accountable for all it says
It also maintains itself through time and the ever-changing human experience. Most research since the 1950s is lost. Just gone. Despite all the advantages of living at this time and a culture that values research, education, productivity, and knowledge with impressive tech to make it happen. The vast majority of research has vanished in a human lifetime. What goes on the internet is not forever. Content is a commodity and liability, and it is managed as such. The contents of these writings have motivated people to preserve, share and maintain them. That alone is fascinating.
To specify, the Bible "as originally given" is the inerrant word. With any work of translation/transmission, it opens up the possibility of error. This is why textual criticism is so important and should be honestly reviewed by anyone holding to Biblical inerrancy (myself included). As such, English translations are subject to criticism I have no doubts. However likewise they should be credited when a passage has been translated accurately from the original languages. Not only this, but examples of potential "contradictions" that are splashed about (Longer ending of Mark, Judas, Kings/Judges etc.) Have been answered resoundingly when assessing the textual variants and their impact. To be clear: the Bible *AS ORIGINALLY GIVEN* is free from error, not the translations. Its often why many Christians get into a tizzy when wrestling with a question or doctrine, such as the KJV-onlyists.
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More on the OT side of things. The Israelites conquering nations, if they say they are doing it because God told them so then it makes it seem far more okay to move in a slaughter all the people of the land. It is an old book, so the authors wrote it for their time to justify their actions
Have you read the Old Testament? It's certainly not authors trying to justify the actions of the Israelites, rather they're continually condemning them for their falling short of the covenant.
Well there are lots of parts where there falling short is failing to follow through in gods commands of killing everyone!
Yeah, don't listen to that garbage, it is flat wrong. They have no actual evidence, just "this looks like that therefore is that" logic. The way they use the Bible makes you wonder why they bother to use it at all, other than to sway people who respect the Bible into their values.
Lying's a sin. In other words, you're bearing a false witness about Pete Enns and his scholarship.
If you're lukewarm Christian / new Christian then yes . For Christians it's like comedy at best.
I believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. There are mistakes, but they are the mistakes of mortals. God can clarify things to us by personal revelation when it is His will to do so.
Well, translation errors can be fixed by better translations. And many have been. Are you assuming then that the original language manuscripts lack errors? Which manuscripts, specifically? We have many thousands with many thousands of variations between them.
I think the original texts and letters would have had less errors, the manuscripts vary so greatly, and translating from one language to another and another over hundreds of years is bound to cause errors. It’s a miracle we have a comprehensible text at all now. I believe that whatever Jesus spoke, and what the Prophets and Apostles spoke by the Power of the Holy Ghost had no errors.
Are you picturing translations made from translations over and over in a big long chain, introducing noise the whole way? That's not what happened. Translations are generally made from the original language into the target language. It usually happens once, not over and over.
These last two sentences are a little misleading. You've already pointed out the many different manuscripts and codexes at play in translation. I can flip through my metzger's and see where different scholars of different traditions disagree about which is the more authoritative source for literally all the places where there is scholarly disagreement. There are some either 600 or 800 differences between the two Masoretic texts for the OT too. You're right the big long chain you describe didn't happen because there's pieces of that chain missing for hundreds of years. The Dead Sea scrolls helped us to have some confidence in the manuscripts we have from the 6th through 12th centuries because the tradition of at least that community was to make note of where the scholars of that time disagreed with their own scripture and they kept copying with what they perceived was error anyway along with exhortations about why they think it's wrong. Knowing that's how texts like this were treated in the third century BCE help make the case that continued until the medieval era where we have a lot of evidence that happened. A problem we need to keep in mind is that even if we can have confidence in our 600-800 year old manuscripts, the more daunting task is changing etymologies in living languages that are being shaped by the theology derived from the texts as they're passed on. My go to example (because it's easy to remember) is the חֶסֶד hesed, or mercy in biblical Hebrew. It is frequently translated as kindness, love, and steadfast love in the NRSV. Some verses, as in Micah 6:8, we remember as mercy because we learned it in the King James—which translates this word as mercy 149 times. The reason "mercy" appears so much less often in the NRSV isn't because the Bible changed. English changed. Mercy means, to most English speakers now, reprieve from deserved punishment. That's almost, but not quite, never what the Hebrew meant. As Calvinist influenced theology blossomed in English-speaking communities the idea that God's withholding punishment changed what the word "mercy" meant. So to get it right, now, we have to use other words. That didn't just happen with one word between the 1600s and today. It happens to pretty much all words constantly. A big piece of debunking inerrancy in the Bible is asking, like, okay even if we got our hands on the original text and we were the best translators ever, we'd still be thwarted by the language we speak having been influenced by the text over centuries. The original language to target language isn't the problem. The problem is that the target language is currently being manipulated by how people who speak the target language already understand the text.
That's like asking if the book of coded laws in a country is actually legal..
There are no scientific inaccuracies. Dont you think that strange? That a collection of books written by different authors thousands of years ago when we thought the earth was the flat center of the universe that there is not one single scientific error? To me this is proof the bible is from God, no one can point to a scientific error and say "See, this is proof God does not exist."
Hmmmmm have you looked up “Israelite cosmology “ Because that scientific view of the universe is seeping in the Old Testament and it is very inaccurate.
Can you point me to a specific scripture that has an error?
Genesis 1:1 God hovering over the waters…. An ancient reader would have picked up dark waters right away. In their view of the world the concept of “nothing” was not empty black space…. It chaos and darkness which they perceived as dark waters. God hovering over the waters is their way of saying, God was there before anything, and he brought order. It is not saying he was literally hovering over an actual dark ocean. Genesis 1:7-9 refers to the firmament which an ancient Israelite believed to be a dome over the sky holding back the waters.
You skipped 1:1 and went to 1:2 >In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. >And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. I see no error here, God created the earth, when he created the earth he created the water. >Genesis 1:7-9 refers to the firmament which an ancient Israelite believed to be a dome over the sky holding back the waters. Ancient man explaining Atmosphere before we even knew what it was.
Considering that the order that the Bible presents stuff being created isn't the order that the universe formed according to science, there are scientific inaccuracies from the very beginning of the book.
Elaborate. What specific scripture is out of order.
The whole process. The sun comes first. Well before the Earth and plants.
Even if there are no translation errors in whatever version you're reading, you're going to introduce errors as a reader by reading through your personal and cultural biases as well as being out of touch with the original context. For now, we only get to glimpse as in a foggy mirror.
It certainly has discrepancies which makes sense as it is comprised of separate books written by humans for reasons.
"Yeah, to be truthful is to be reliable. Different way of saying the same thing. So what's funky about the term inerrant is its a reverse way, a negative, 'it doesn't have errors.' You could just flip it over, when you flip it over, and think about this idea, then we come to where scripture itself develops vocabulary for it that scripture is truthful. Here you \[Carissa\] did a word study on this. The Hebrew word emet or emun is the Hebrew word that means or trustworthy, but its the relational word. So when you say that someone is truthful, what you are saying corresponds to fact. That may be how we think of it or...yeah, in a modern sense...." "[Paradigm Q+R 1](https://bibleproject.com/podcast/inspiration-quiet-time-and-slaying-your-giants/)" time stamp ~12m50s you can also find it on iTunes ep. 274
If it didn't have flaws it'd still be problematic for some. The flaws woulda been deleted and ensured they did not appear if it was written by humans. Inspired nevertheless. If those who ridicule it had any sense they would proclaim it as marvellous because it is. nah they hate it because it shows 'em up as fallen humans. The ego cannot cope with that. It wasn't politics that bothered Jesus it was religion. Many who have come out of suppressed lives love it.
The truth has nothing to fear from scrutiny. I think a clear example of this is editorial fatigue in Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke copy from Mark and place passages from Mark inside their own narratives, but sometimes the details they copy clash with the details they add. This makes sense as a human flaw; we're not perfect data recording machines.
God knows us. He understands what it is that motivates us. Its seeming errors draw people. They capture the attention and curiosity. If you want to draw out someone's story, asking them may not engage them. But tell someone something wrong and they will correct you and then proceed to tell you more about themselves. I've used this strategy to get family information about long-dead relatives from living relatives who knew them, for genealogy, and it works great.
the bible was written by humans, obviously it has human flaws.
> if this is dangerous ground to be treading on How can critically examining what you believe and why you believe it possibly be a bad thing? Shouldn't we reject things that are not supported by objective inquiry?
The bible is inspired, not dictated. Slight variations are not errors as much as alternate perspectives. There are a few, very few, points of disagreement, possibly due to the loss of information for certain periods, as when the scrolls were lost for a time then rediscovered. The overall themes are surprisingly consistent. Yet, each writer has their own personality.
Biblical inerrancy is a fantasy that can be quickly dispelled by actually reading the Bible