Is the Bible........?

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Is the Bible an infallible direct inspiration from God or an indirect one or none?

I know this thread would not lead to nothing from the different sides of the issue rather than perhaps just being interesting. At least I would like to learn different justifications.

An example:

According to this passage, the knowledge have been passed by word from people who have believed to witness something very meaningful for them, the issue is that nowadays, we know that statements from eyewitnesses can be unreliable. Also, about Luke or whoever wrote the book, stated that he investigated and wrote what he found from the word of these people, when analyzing this, this hardly seems like a divine inspiration, as has been stated it was the case in the Old Testament.

Paul's letters also seem to be from knowledge gained from studying or looking into it, without a divine inspiration, and some of his passages, related to marriage and women seem to come from his personal views rather than God's.

And well, these assumptions, if you will, are gained from thinking it through from a secular perspective I suppose, although from a christian perspective it could be similar, I suppose there might be different explanations to defend any position on this.

I want to say that this is not an attack to any belief system, but to see what are the thoughts on it to defend any position, I mean, a christian who may have a "faith crisis" might honestly ask himself these questions.

you think too much greenblue. faith isn't an intellectual experience.

Well, are we talking about a current ESV?

The ESV is not infallible, but rather is a translation and is based upon scholarly efforts to both interpret the text, find proper base texts, and remove errors that have entered the text. Given that the Bible has historically had errors inserted into it, current Bibles cannot be considered infallible.

As for the original authors, well, I am not going to say. There is not enough evidence to affirm much I would argue, partially due to the extended time period. However, I do think that one can allow for the existence of a man named Jesus, who was a major character in a religious movement of the day.

As for the teachings of the NT, the original texts are a bit separated from us, and I would argue that infallibility is supremely difficult to prove anyway.

Theology is an intellectual experience though.

I don't believe the Bible is infallible just like I don't believe that the Pope is infallible. I think there are people who wrote the Bible who had spiritual experiences and were given revelations through dreams and visions. These experiences would be considered hallucinations today and would be dismissed. I'm not one to dismiss dreams and visions though. The rules of conduct were placed in the Bible to guide uncivilized people how to live more peacefully with one another.

If you are interested, this link to a thread I started----The genealogy of Jesus conflict-- points out one of the most obvious mistakes in the bible. If this one mistake exist, then the bible is not infallible.

Hope this answers some of your question.


Edit: Oops! I see that you have already posted in that thread.
Anyhow, do you know that the genealogy in Matthew also conflicts with the genealogy in 1st. Chronicles ch.3 ?

Last edited by Isthisreal on 02 Jan 2009, 1:00 am, edited 2 times in total.

yeah, i spose - theology is what you do while you wait in the hope of receiving faith.

Well, the Old Testament is probably better regulated as far as accuracy. Jews worldwide have very strict rules for making copies of the Torah. The condition of the parchment, how the words are written, the special person who actually does this. So you could probably say that this is faithful to the urtext.

The New Testament, however, is a lot looser when it comes to 'accuracy'. As I understand it, many of the books were written decades after the events depicted happened. Jesus might not have as many books in there as Paul put in after him. There was a council centuries after the BC/AD split that decided which books 'stayed' and which got 'thrown out'. The remaindered ones became the Apocrypha. You get some of this through 'The Davinci Code", although that has enough errors of it's own...

Since the New Testament comes to us via Aramaic to New Testament Greek to Latin, to English, and several versions of English prior to King James, there's a few errors in there (despite the two admonshments in the final chapter of Revalations which states what God'll do to those who tamper with the work...

So it'd be hard to pin down that the KJV is the 'revealed' word of God. In fact, the Muslims have prior claim (take it up with the big guy upstairs.. to 'revealed' wisdom.

Well, the Old Testament is probably better regulated as far as accuracy. Jews worldwide have very strict rules for making copies of the Torah. The condition of the parchment, how the words are written, the special person who actually does this. So you could probably say that this is faithful to the urtext.

The New Testament, however, is a lot looser when it comes to 'accuracy'. As I understand it, many of the books were written decades after the events depicted happened. Jesus might not have as many books in there as Paul put in after him. There was a council centuries after the BC/AD split that decided which books 'stayed' and which got 'thrown out'. The remaindered ones became the Apocrypha. You get some of this through 'The Davinci Code", although that has enough errors of it's own...

Since the New Testament comes to us via Aramaic to New Testament Greek to Latin, to English, and several versions of English prior to King James, there's a few errors in there (despite the two admonshments in the final chapter of Revalations which states what God'll do to those who tamper with the work...

So it'd be hard to pin down that the KJV is the 'revealed' word of God. In fact, the Muslims have prior claim (take it up with the big guy upstairs.. to 'revealed' wisdom.

Well, for me the bible was a book I picked up in my 'dark night of the soul' or (for me) midlife crisis period. I needed help desperately and no human being I turned to was even remotely interested in helping me. It became the most extraordinary experience of my life, once I started reading it - I couldn't put it down and it took on what you might call a 'magical' quality for me, I read late into the night and the first thing I did in the morning was pick up where I left off reading the night before. It took me about two weeks or so to get thru it, reading every day and night, (I skipped lots of the NT as I was familiar with the story of Jesus from other sources, I was mainly focused on and phenomenally impressed by the OT) and that's how I became a christian, so for me it is a special quasi-magical text. I no longer have those experiences with the bible, I believe what I experienced at that time with the bible is a particular type of conversion experience as documented in other peoples experience, but that's what made me a christian, that's where I got my faith from and so I guess that means I would see it as the inspired word of god.

Indeed. Faith is not an intellectual exoperience.

Theology is not just another branch of knowledge, like history or chemistry. The Bible isn't just a bunch of words to be absorbed.

No, it actually is. It used to be called the mother of the sciences, in fact. I mean, it isn't as analytical as chemistry perhaps, but there are efforts made to improve hermeneutics, and to increase the viability of philosophical ideas. If theology were not a branch of knowledge, then there would be no reason for theologians to seek advanced education, to write books of more than 1000 pages, with arguments against all sorts of opposing ideas for the purpose of eliminating them, and there'd be no reason for books of theology to overlappingly be important books of philosophy, such as is found with Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas.

No, actually it isn't. If you memorize all the words of Scripture yet these words have no profound impact on you, if they lead to no inner trasnformation, then they have not served their purpose. The Bible was not written in an effort to make intellectuals even more intellectual.

I believe everything in that book is literally directed from god himself, therefore it's infallible.

No really, it was written by men. Even if it was some how inspired by god, are not men infallible themselves?

There is always going to be one philosophy I can relate to in any given book including the bible. My favorite example is "This too shall pass."

Why?

Because it is one thing I experience an awful lof of in life and it reminds me not to hold onto old problems. It would be just the same as some of Victor Frankl's philosophies.

Now before anyone accuses me of being a relgionist, let me correct you....No I'm not. Agreeing with some philosophies behind every book including religious ones does not make me believe that god was directly behind any of them nor a divine prophet. My perception is no man/woman is completely fallible nor infallible but both.

No, it actually is. If you memorize all of the words of scripture, and can provide interesting perspective on them, then you can engage in theology, even if these words have absolutely no transformative impact upon you. There is a difference between theology and faith, and although most would argue that good theology fits with a good faith, theology is still an intellectual exercise.

The issue of the purpose of the bible, while theological, does not force theology onto a particular path, and there are theologians who reject biblical ideas for various reasons, such as John Spong who rejects the resurrection or Thomas Altizer who rejects the resurrection and the current existence of God.