Bible being inspired and inerrant

[laylow]

The only question it would answer would be “how much have the current copies drifted from the original”. We can construct nearly the same test by pulling contemporary copies from geographically separate areas and comparing the drift between them.

There’s been very, very little from what we can see. Saw a neat study on drift in the gospels done by a man that professed no faith - it’s fairly recent too. Wish I could remember the names…

That is a stretch. There is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of errors, etc. Granted, most are spelling and general mistakes, however, there are certain to be areas where scribes actually changed the text.

Yes, we do assume the religion is “true”.

As do all religions…

Scrutinize what you receive. Consider the source. So on.

Here, “this is a public forum, so not all posts are created equal”.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Many Christians believe the Bible to be inerrant and God-inspired. Although I realize these are 2 different things, there are plenty of questions that arise for both and some can be applied to both. If these things are indeed true then:

Quite often in this form there are posts that seem to be simply trying to stir the pot. This looks like one of them. But I’ll rise to the bait and “help” you out.

Inerrant, God inspired, etc.: One of the other responders already quoted Vatican II:
“… Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writing for the sake of our salvation” (Article 11, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation”).

So what does that mean? As with almost all Vatican documents, it’s intentionally left a little vague. But let’s apply it to the beginning of Genesis, since that still is the cause of a lot of controversy. Is it necessary to believe God created the universe in 7 days “for the sake of salvation”? No. Is it necessary that God created the universe in the order written in Genesis “for the sake of salvation”? No. You could go on, but you get the idea. So what is in the beginning of Genesis “for the sake of salvation”? #1–God created the universe. #2–creation is good #3–Adam and Eve disobeyed God and they and their descendants were punished. That’s about it.

1. Why do we not have the original copies of the New Testament? Yes, many copies of the New Testament exist, more than any ancient book. However, the ones that do are copies of copies of copies. The first scrap of the Gospels that we have is P52, dated around 200AD, decades and decades from the original writings. Many others are much later. If God went through all of the trouble to inspire the Bible, wouldn’t he at least want his people to have the original copy? Would it have been that much trouble for God to preserve the original? There are other ancient writings where originals exist.

Let’s take your last sentence first: There are no other ancient writings from that period where the originals exist. The are exceptions like the Dead Sea Scrolls, but all the Greek and Latin literature we have comes from copies and copies of copies of copies. We don’t have the originals–or anything close to it–for any ancient Greek or Latin writings. Could God have preserved an original? Sure. It would have been a miracle. But that question is along the same lines as “Couldn’t God have made us all believe in Him?” Sure. But that eliminates free will.

And in fact God did preserve the original–in the sense that the Church preserved the intended meaning.

1. Why are there so many errors, discrepancies, contradictions in the Bible? Most Biblical scholars agree to this as virtually mere fact, except mainly strict fundamentalists, conservatives, and Evangelicals. If God inspired the writers, could he have not helped them divinely so they would not make these errors?

You are making a common error, esp. one our Protestant friends make. Catholic doctrine is based on both the tradition of the Church and on the New Testament. The Church validates the New Testament, not the other way around. Those who say the Church should only follow the New Testament are simply ignoring history. Which existed first, the Church or the New Testament? Clearly the Church, which began on Pentacost. The first books of the New Testament were the earliest epistles of Paul, which most scholars date to around 50 AD–almost 20 years after the beginning of the Church. And of course the last book of the NT, John, wasn’t written until about 90 AD. So yes, there are in fact about 30,000 “errors” in the various manuscripts of the New Testament. So what? The Church decides–and always has decided–what to accept and what to reject. If they made a “mistake” and accepted a copyist’s error or explanatory note as part of the accepted text, then it’s no longer a mistake, simply because the Church accepted it. Who is to say where inspiration begins and ends? Does it end with the original writer? Or does it extend to the Church’s acceptance of the text?

1. Why were books written at a later date and then prescribed to be written by another author, who was much more well known at the time of Jesus? For example, most Bible scholars agree that Peter did not write 1 Peter or 2 Peter. Why? Two main reasons. First the date they were written, but mainly because Peter was an illiterate fisherman who certainly didn’t know how to write! Most agree that the Gospels were not written be Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John based on many reasons, but certainly by dates as well.

The actual authorship doesn’t matter–at all. See above. It’s the Church’s acceptance of these texts that validates them. So if you tell me St. Peter didn’t write the Epistle of Peter, I will answer “So what?”

And of course everyone agrees that the texts we have today were based on earlier written material. St. Paul often quotes early creeds and prayers in his epistles. It’s accepted by virtually all scholars that the authors of the Gospels (whoever they were) were using earlier written accounts. We can only guess at the dates of these earlier accounts. Again, it’s not the word-for-word writing that’s important, it’s the message they are meant to convey.

As for the authorship, it was a common practice at the time to write something and then attach the name of a well-known person to it. This seems fraudulent to us today, but in the 1st c. it was common practice. Again, it doesn’t matter.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

I tend to trust Dr. Ehrman when it comes to historical pieces during this time, simply because he has spent his entire life studying this, learning multiple languages to read the manuscripts himself. I rarely see people disagree with him on history. However, I know others have put in that time as well and also realize he could be wrong. However, I find him pretty unbiased and trustworthy when speaking of factual or historical information.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m a big Bart Ehrman fan. I’ve read quite a few of his books. I can agree with probably 98% of what he says with no problem. But he has a few holes in his arguments and more than a few blind spots. But I invite you to read my review of Bart’s book “Did Jesus Exist?” on Amazon. The title of my review, tellingly, is “Is Bart Catholic?”

amazon.com/gp/review/RW14CF9BRO2T1?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl

I give two quotations about how we should approach scripture at the beginning of my review: one from Bart’s book, one from the Catholic catechism. They are virtually identical. When all is said and done, Bart has a very Catholic viewpoint.

[By the way, Bart replies to e-mails if you contact him. His replies to me have always been fairly witty and good natured.]

However–a big however–Bart is still clinging to his Evangelical background. Since he denies the authority of the Church, he is focused solely on the texts (sola scriptura indeed…). So for Bart, the fact that each of the four Gospels has totally different details in its story of the Resurrection is a BIG DEAL. For a Catholic, as I said in another post, the correct response is “So what?” (And this is exactly Garry Wills says in “What the Gospels Meant.” Garry talks about the “discrepancies” and says, quite rightly, “So what?”

Indulge me with what might seem like a digression. It isn’t. Let’s take a look at Aesop’s Fables, specifically the story of the Fox and the Grapes.

A fox, male, about 4 years old, called “Foxy” is walking along one day and sees some grapes in a farm in Tuscany owned by Lucretius. He decides to eat some grapes. He walks over to the grapes and reaches up. Now it’s about noon. He can’t quite reach the grapes, which are just reaching peak ripeness. After trying some more, he slinks away and says to himself “Those grapes were probably sour, anyway.”

OK. What the point of the story? Very simple–that some people excuse their failures by saying they didn’t want to accomplish their goals anyway because their goals were flawed in some way. But do we care what the name of the fox was? Or where the farm was located? Or the name of the farmer? Or how many grapes there were? Or what time of day it was? Etc. Etc. No. Of course not. Those are extraneous details that fill out the story, but they are not the essence of the story. They don’t matter.

So think of the Fox and the Grapes when you read the Bible. What matters? What doesn’t matter? What is simply detail to fill out the story?

 

[laylow]

I couldn’t agree more. I’m a big Bart Ehrman fan. I’ve read quite a few of his books. I can agree with probably 98% of what he says with no problem. But he has a few holes in his arguments and more than a few blind spots. But I invite you to read my review of Bart’s book “Did Jesus Exist?” on Amazon. The title of my review, tellingly, is “Is Bart Catholic?”

amazon.com/gp/review/RW14CF9BRO2T1?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl

I give two quotations about how we should approach scripture at the beginning of my review: one from Bart’s book, one from the Catholic catechism. They are virtually identical. When all is said and done, Bart has a very Catholic viewpoint.

[By the way, Bart replies to e-mails if you contact him. His replies to me have always been fairly witty and good natured.]

I agree that his nature and the way he presents information is top notch.

However–a big however–Bart is still clinging to his Evangelical background. Since he denies the authority of the Church, he is focused solely on the texts (sola scriptura indeed…). So for Bart, the fact that each of the four Gospels has totally different details in its story of the Resurrection is a BIG DEAL. For a Catholic, as I said in another post, the correct response is “So what?” (And this is exactly Garry Wills says in “What the Gospels Meant.” Garry talks about the “discrepancies” and says, quite rightly, “So what?”

I am starting to see from some of his view points that he does fall back on those Evangelical views. But I still find him very open-minded.

Indulge me with what might seem like a digression. It isn’t. Let’s take a look at Aesop’s Fables, specifically the story of the Fox and the Grapes.

A fox, male, about 4 years old, called “Foxy” is walking along one day and sees some grapes in a farm in Tuscany owned by Lucretius. He decides to eat some grapes. He walks over to the grapes and reaches up. Now it’s about noon. He can’t quite reach the grapes, which are just reaching peak ripeness. After trying some more, he slinks away and says to himself “Those grapes were probably sour, anyway.”

OK. What the point of the story? Very simple–that some people excuse their failures by saying they didn’t want to accomplish their goals anyway because their goals were flawed in some way. But do we care what the name of the fox was? Or where the farm was located? Or the name of the farmer? Or how many grapes there were? Or what time of day it was? Etc. Etc. No. Of course not. Those are extraneous details that fill out the story, but they are not the essence of the story. They don’t matter.

So think of the Fox and the Grapes when you read the Bible. What matters? What doesn’t matter? What is simply detail to fill out the story?

I think I would largely disagree with this. As a simple example for instance, the entire doctrine of hell, certainly the eternity of the suffering is largely based on quotes from Jesus in the NT. If Jesus in misquoted, that’s a pretty important detail you might want to have correct.

And I disagree with the Church being the infallible authority. Would need a book to explain this but I’m not writing that much. Look at the current Pope and look how much people are questioning him? Isn’t the Holy Spirit guiding his decisions? Why are Catholics questioning him?

 

[Vonsalza]

That is a stretch. There is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of errors, etc. Granted, most are spelling and general mistakes, however, there are certain to be areas where scribes actually changed the text.

Pertaining to each individual Gospel, the oldest copies of all save Mark date to 2nd century manuscripts. Frankly, Laylow, you just don’t have enough time for significant drift to occur in each individual text, as they depict events that occurred within approximately one lifetime of their oldest copies.

In relation to the consistency between Gospels, most of the “errors” you identify are of the type where Jesus is portrayed riding into Jerusalem on one beast in one gospel and another would identify Jesus riding two.
To one author, Jesus riding one animal with another pack animal following behind leads him to describe Jesus as riding “one”. The exact same event leads another to describe “two”.

As I once told a nice atheist fellow on these forums, if you and I go attend the next Superbowl and write about the event 20 years later, do you really think our accounts will line-up perfectly? Of course not. As another example of the same, I’m blown away by how differently my siblings perceived growing up under our father despite us all having shared most of the experiences we frame our views with.

To call differences like these “errors” is rather sophomoric (if it is indeed one of the “errors” you make reference to).

 

[Vonsalza]

And I disagree with the Church being the infallible authority. Would need a book to explain this but I’m not writing that much. Look at the current Pope and look how much people are questioning him? Isn’t the Holy Spirit guiding his decisions? Why are Catholics questioning him?

Respectfully, you just don’t know what “papal infallibility” pertains to. Every pope that has ever served has presumably been quite fallible.

He is infallible in the specific exercise of his office from the chair. His day-to-day opinions are not and never have been.

 

[laylow]

Pertaining to each individual Gospel, the oldest copies of all save Mark date to 2nd century manuscripts. Frankly, Laylow, you just don’t have enough time for significant drift to occur in each individual text, as they depict events that occurred within approximately one lifetime of their oldest copies.

In relation to the consistency between Gospels, most of the “errors” you identify are of the type where Jesus is portrayed riding into Jerusalem on one beast in one gospel and another would identify Jesus riding two.
To one author, Jesus riding one animal with another pack animal following behind leads him to describe Jesus as riding “one”. The exact same event leads another to describe “two”.

As I once told a nice atheist fellow on these forums, if you and I go attend the next Superbowl and write about the event 20 years later, do you really think our accounts will line-up perfectly? Of course not. As another example of the same, I’m blown away by how differently my siblings perceived growing up under our father despite us all having shared most of the experiences we frame our views with.

To call differences like these “errors” is rather sophomoric (if it is indeed one of the “errors” you make reference to).

I wasn’t only referring to the Gospels when I spoke of the errors and the numbers of them. But there are significant ones. The example you gave would just be one you would find by reading the Gospels “horizontally.”

But even then, if just read the way they are there are plenty of things that need to be sorted out.

Some say, well God didn’t literally create the world in 6 days, or Adam and Eve weren’t literally the first humans, and it wasn’t literally the fruit that was the issue, or there wasn’t literally a flood that took out humanity.

So the Church conveniently teaches that it is our interpretation that you can trust, we are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Well I thought the Bible writers were, now it’s the Church?

There’s a lot of well, you need to look at it like this and you need to interpret that…blah blah

What if the Church and it’s leaders have been lying all along about being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Is that then blasphemous?

 

[Vonsalza]

But even then, if just read the way they are there are plenty of things that need to be sorted out.

I think it’s time for some cited, textual examples.

So the Church conveniently teaches that it is our interpretation that you can trust, we are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Well I thought the Bible writers were, now it’s the Church?

You split them in error. The authors of scripture were Apostles and the originators of the bishopric that leads the Church from then unto this very day. They were the Church and their bishops are the Church - a la “Apostolic Succession”.

There’s a lot of well, you need to look at it like this and you need to interpret that…blah blah

I get it. Translating texts from different cultures, languages, philosophical views is not properly doable with a middle-school reading level and that’s frustrating to John Q. Common-man. Luckily, the Church is there to do it for him, as it literally always has been. Didn’t have enough money for a bible or enough education to read it? No prob, Bob. Head on in to the visible, authoritative Church and hear what it actually says.

What if the Church and it’s leaders have been lying all along about being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Is that then blasphemous?

No, no. Then there is no real Church and it’s all been a waste of time from the get-go. But that’s quite the conspiracy to prove. In 2000 years, someone would have probably spilled the beans by now.

 

[edwest2]

Pope Leo XIII Exercises Papal Infallibility

And the passage in question from Providentissimus Deus is as follows:

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican.” [Providentissimus Deus, n. 20.]

Ed

 

[po18guy]

I like and respect this answer. Do you think it is healthy to question and progress your knowledge when it comes to faith, or just accept what the church teaches?

The Church teaches every bit of revealed truth. You need nothing more, but the human intellect and curiosity always demand more. If not kept in check, you can lead yourself astray. Faith and reason must always travel together. Faith without reason ultimately results in a murderous religion. Reason without faith ultimately results in murderous secular power. Examples of each abound.

Get the book. Read the book. Be comforted in faith by the power of your human reason.

 

[Aloysium]

Whether my writing here does anything other than help me organize my thoughts, I’m not sure. But it reminds me that the only thing that Jesus wrote was in the sand. It was His love, His sacrifice on the cross followed by His resurrection that saved and redeemed us. What He also did was to establish His church. While the Bible is important, what matters is what we do. To grow in the Way that is Jesus, does include contemplation of God’s Word through the dialogue established by scripture, but also prayer, in the solitude of oneself and as a community, participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist - the body and blood of Jesus, attendance at mass, following the Commandments and engaging in charitable acts. We cannot become love and thereby enter into communion with God, solely through the intellect; we must give of ourselves for the good of the other and totally to God.

The Bible has proven to be most definitely inspired and an extremely important means of communication with God. Every reading reveals something new. As a form of communication, it is beyond such considerations as to whether it is fallible or inerrant. Connecting us as one humanity to the Word of God the best term to describe it is “real”.

 

[Bradski]

Really?

 

[laylow]

Respectfully, you just don’t know what “papal infallibility” pertains to. Every pope that has ever served has presumably been quite fallible.

He is infallible in the specific exercise of his office from the chair. His day-to-day opinions are not and never have been.

You don’t find that a bit…murky?

 

[tony12356]

Actually, we don’t have many portions of manuscripts of the New Testament “books” that date back to the early second century. All we have are fragments less than the size of a full page.

1. There are no errors in the bible with respect to the “truth” that the bible is intending to convey. The Second Vatican Council taught that “… Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writing for the sake of our salvation” (Article 11, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation”).

Nice assertion. Please demonstrate that your statement is true.

 

[Wesrock]

And I disagree with the Church being the infallible authority. Would need a book to explain this but I’m not writing that much. Look at the current Pope and look how much people are questioning him? Isn’t the Holy Spirit guiding his decisions? Why are Catholics questioning him?

Lay Catholics who don’t have Church-related degrees would do better to refrain from publicly criticising any clergy on matters of doctrine or liturgy, but even so, your description of the Holy Spirit guiding the Pope isn’t really how Catholics believe it works. Magisterial authority is more complex than that.

 

[Wesrock]

Nice assertion. Please demonstrate that your statement is true.

It’s a doctrinal position and a statement on how scripture must be interpreted. It’s not something to be proved, it’s a matter of Church teaching od how scripture should be understood.

 

[laylow]

Lay Catholics who don’t have Church-related degrees would do better to refrain from publicly criticising any clergy on matters of doctrine or liturgy, but even so, your description of the Holy Spirit guiding the Pope isn’t really how Catholics believe it works. Magisterial authority is more complex than that.

Well, I admit, I don’t understand the Holy Spirit guiding bit…

 

[laylow]

Really?

Apparently we can play back oral tradition, just like in a court room when trying a case from years past…

 

[Erikaspirit16]

I am starting to see from some of his view points that he does fall back on those Evangelical views. But I still find him very open-minded.

But as I said earlier, he has blind spots. So he’s not really that open-minded. Only up to a point. He still has it in his head (you might too) that somehow every detail, every word, every letter of the New Testament should be absolutely perfect and infallible. Why? I think the original authors would be horrified at that point of view. When Bart sees a an error or a discrepancy (which he certainly does, as do all scholars), for him it’s all or nothing. If one thing is wrong, everything is wrong. (So if the fox in the fable was a female and not a male, that invalidates the point of the story? Really?) And he ultimately chose nothing–atheism. Meanwhile, as I said, Catholics would say “So what?” and be unperturbed.

I think I would largely disagree with this. As a simple example for instance, the entire doctrine of hell, certainly the eternity of the suffering is largely based on quotes from Jesus in the NT. If Jesus in misquoted, that’s a pretty important detail you might want to have correct.

I think you’ve missed the point, which I did explain earlier. I’ll take another shot at it. It simply is false, a perversion of history, that doctrines (Hell, etc.) are based solely on the authority of a couple phrases in the New Testament. The oral tradition of the Church has been, and is, equally important. Again, the New Testament did not exist before the existence of the Church; the Church came long (20-60 years) before the existence of the New Testament. The Church decided which books were canonical; it wasn’t the other way around. So if there was something in a Gospel that didn’t fit in with the beliefs of the consensus of the Church, it was not considered legitimate (or canonical). Thus if a Gospel denied the existence of Hell, it would not be considered legitimate. The New Testament simply put into writing some of the consensus beliefs of the early Church. And not all of them either–for example, the immaculate conception of Mary is not in the New Testament at all, and yet it was always a consensus belief. The fact that it wasn’t codified until the 20th c. doesn’t matter; it was there all along.

And of course (as Bart points out in several of his books!) there was a development or refinement of understanding of theology over time. So at first people just said “Christ is God.” But then people began to speculate how Christ was God. And they began to refine the doctrine. And naturally this process went go on and on, refining and refining. It doesn’t mean that a doctrine of the early Church was wrong, it simply means that although it was the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth, or maybe a better way to put it would be that it was a truth that could have been explained better.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

And I disagree with the Church being the infallible authority. Would need a book to explain this but I’m not writing that much. Look at the current Pope and look how much people are questioning him? Isn’t the Holy Spirit guiding his decisions? Why are Catholics questioning him?

There is a good Wikipedia article, “magisterium.” Have a look at it. One thing non-Catholics inevitably get wrong is the idea of infallibility (also a good Wikipedia article). It’s another of the doctrines that were believed from the beginning (See, for example, Cardinal Newman and his Apologia pro Vita Sua, where he explains he converted to Catholicism because he realized that the Donatists were heretics simply because the Pope said they were.) but only codified at Vatican I in (I think) 1861. There are all sorts of levels of authority. And although the Pope is infallible, it’s only in special circumstances. (It’s like a Supreme Court judge if you like–if Justice Roberts gives his opinion about his favorite restaurant in an interview, it has no legal authority whatsoever. If he gives his written opinion as a Supreme Court justice deciding a case, but he’s in the minority, people might read his opinion because of who he is, but it’s has no bearing on the law. It’s only when he acts as a Supreme Court justice in consensus with a majority that his opinion becomes law.) And there has only been one infallible pronouncement in the last 150 years–the Assumption of Mary (again, a consensus belief of the early Church, now codified). Most of the time the Pope simply speaks as a man; people pay attention because of his position, but as you can see in this forum on a daily basis, good Catholics disagree with him all the time on a variety of issues. Is the Holy Spirit guiding him? Maybe. Maybe most of the time. We don’t know. I certainly don’t think the Holy Spirit likes the idea of impromptu press conferences on airplanes!

Take a recent example, the Synod of the Family last year. Obviously Francis wanted the Synod to approve his own point of view–he wanted a more liberal (I hate to use that word because it has political connotations) view of divorce, etc. He was opposed by Cardinal Muller of Germany and many other more conservative cardinals. The final report was ambiguous because the Church never makes an official pronouncement that is not supported by a consensus. There was no consensus. So the report was ambiguous–it could be interpreted in a way that supported each side. That was intentional.

Why do people question Francis? I can only speculate. A lot of people think that Francis is saying “new” or “outrageous” things. He’s not. He’s not saying anything new at all. He may have a different emphasis on some things. He floats some ideas (like allowing divorced Catholics to take communion), but anyone who actually knows some theology realizes it’s just a matter of stress, it’s not a new idea. The Church has always believed in the primacy of individual conscience (yes, there could be a lot of footnotes here), so if a divorced and re-married Catholic truly believed they were in a state of grace, they could legitimately receive communion. That’s always been true.