Is there error in the Bible?

[Crumpy]

Personally, I don’t worry about inerrancy. There are lots of books about problems in the bible. None of those problems worry me.

If you read the book “Whose Bible is it?” by Yaroslav Pelikan, he mentions a problem or two in interpreting the scripture. There is a Hebrew word for something that is prohibitied on the Sabbath, and modern Hebrew scholars (and certainly Christians) have no idea what the word means. It has been interpreted to mean “servile labor” which is prohibited on Sabbaths, but nobody knows for sure.

In a larger circle of discussion, Hebrew is an old language that presents a lot of difficulty. There are no vowels, no punctuation, no verse numbers, no footnotes, no dictionary, no chapter headings. And, the Greek septuagint doesn’t agree with the Masoretic text with respect to the number of books included or with the precise meaning of the Masoretic text. It’s really a turkey shoot to just pick one which appears to be earlier, and put all your faith in just that. It’s just somebody’s opinion.

So, when you pick up (insert your favorite translation here) and see all the verse numbers and punctuation and footnotes etc. you’re already looking at a lot of people’s interpretation of what the scripture actually said.

The Masoretic texts were teaching texts and they had insertions of a lot of marks and notes to teach modern readers what the earlier (lost) manuscripts said and meant. So, scholars of any merit have to be fluent in all the texts and do a literary analysis to sift out what the text can possibly mean. The translation into English is by no means a dead subject. don’t ever get that idea.

Then, you can get into deeper discussions about the ‘sources’ of Genesis, which conflict in parts with each other. There’s a book entitled “The Divine Symphony” from the Jewish Publication Society about the various text sources in Genesis and what impact these varying viewpoints have had on Judaism.

God Himself is depicted with complex attributes, just yet merciful. Which picture is right?

 

[PJM]

=Aris;6890959]From what I’ve read so far, there is no Church documentation saying that Scripture is true only when it concerns salvation. A historical type of literature should be correct from a historical standpoint as I understood it. The same correctness is however not expected from other literary genre like apocalyptic writings, poetry.

My question really is what does the Church say about the accuracy of the Bible. Does the Church allow that the Bible does contain error (copyist errors) but that it is ok since it does not affect any doctrine on salvation?

There is dear friend a call for common sense in reading and understanding ANY BOOK. One could point out ALSO that the BIBLE never makes claim to being an historically accurate book, for the very reasons as it well may not be.

 

[CWBetts]

There is dear friend a call for common sense in reading and understanding ANY BOOK. One could point out ALSO that the BIBLE never makes claim to being an historically accurate book, for the very reasons as it well may not be.

It is historically accurate at those times when history is being asserted

 

[ab75]

Is there error in the Bible?

1. In 1893, Pope Leo XIII issued his major biblical encyclical, Providentissimus Deus, in which he affirmed that “God, speaking by the sacred writers, could not set down anything but what was true”
2. In 1920, Pope Benedict XV in his encyclical marking the 15th century of the death of St. Jerome, Spiritus Paraclitus, continued Pope Leo’s teaching: “Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception and no error can occur in the inspired text”
3. The Second Vatican Council repeated this teaching in Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation): “Since therefore, all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to sacred Scripture”
4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church: “God is the author of sacred Scripture because He inspired its human authors; He acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error His saving truth”

Although it is affirmed that there is no error in the Bible, here is an example of an error from the Catholic Douay Rheims version:
Fourth Book of Kings 8: 26 Ochozias was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem.
Second Book Of Paralipomenon, chapter 22: 2 Ochozias was forty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem

Really depends on the definition of “error”, especially regarding non-essential details.

For example, the Bible says Jesus taught different versions of the Lords Prayer. Mark and Matthew give different versions of reasons for divorce (Mark, never … Matthew, adultry). Often the same story has different details (for example, Mark doesn’t mention Peter getting out of the boat and walking toward Jesus). Peter’s denials were to different people, etc.

If you are expecting everything (especially between the different accounts of the Gospels) to match exactly without contradiction, you will likely come to a conclusion that there is error and therefore the Bible is not valid, or really try to reconcile differences in a crazy way. However if you understand the stories were remembered and shared orally for dozens of years, and telling the same story of salvation that God choose to reveal to different audiences (at that time and today) and I think it speaks to the spirit that they are so similar in detail that we can believe they are without error in faith.

 

[ab75]

The question is not if this can be explained. It can.
The question is also not if this error affects any doctrine of salvation. It doesn’t
The question is what does the Church teach about the Bible being free from error and how do copyist errors fit into that explanation?

The reason I ask this is because if one is asked if your Bible is error-free then you need to define what error-free means. If you are saying that there is no error and then are given examples of copyist errors, do you qualify then what error-free means?

The best explanation I got was that the original manuscripts are the ones free from error. But this explanation encounters difficulty in that it appears that God did not protect His word from being error free in transmission.

I know on EWTN radio last week I essentially heard a guest say that while it’s not officially heretical to believe in the 6 day creation and young earth, it is borderline, since it makes God into a God of confusion.

 

[Aris]

Hi everyone! I’m going to ask about something my Dad presented to me this past weekend. I apologize if it repeats something already covered. As a busy Mom of 4 I don’t have time to read through all 38 pages on this thread or search the whole forum. My Dad brought up the whole issue of biblical mistakes in conversation. He said the King James Bible has over 1,000 errors and that the Douy Reems(sp?) 600 some(he stated specific numbers, that I don’t recall, for both of these) so the Catholic Bible is a more accurate version. I asked for an example of a mistake and he refered to the two men hanging on crosses with Jesus. Jesus said the one would be in paradise with Him today. Dad said that’s impossible because when Jesus saw Mary on Sunday He said He had not yet accended to His Father so if two days later He hadn’t been to paradise how could the other man have been? That, due to wrong punctuation, the meaning was changed from Jesus trying to say that I’m telling you today that you will be with me in heaven at the end of time. My Dad believes that all people sleep after they die until the end of time when the dead will be raised for the final judgement and second death. His source is the Seventh Day Adventist church.
He also stated the they didn’t break the legs of the two men to make them die faster but to prevent them from running away as they would be taken down for the sabbath and then put back up on the cross after sabbath was over to finish being crucified. I’ve never heard this one before. He claims that there is historical evidence that men being crucified would be put in a cell for the sabbath and that they would scrape together dirt into a pile and suffocate themselves in it to avoid being put back on the cross since they had broken legs and couldn’t run away.
Being that the two other men weren’t dead by the sabbath and would have been put back on the cross the following Sunday is another example of the same error since the one man wasn’t even dead that same day.
Have any of you heard stuff like this before and how do I respond? I love my Dad but he has no respect for the Catholic faith and is a constant source of attacks. I’ve never been one for debates but I would sure like to educate myself so I am better prepared in the future.
Thanks, Rebecca

1. Death Sleep - that is something you may find in other threads especally those that deal with SDA threads. Definitely this is something that is either not found in the Bible or is a gross minsinterpretation of the text.
2. Breaking the legs of the the ones crucified will put pressure on the abdominal area making it difficult to breath. This eventually leads to suffocation. This has been proven by science.

 

[Aris]

Personally, I don’t worry about inerrancy. There are lots of books about problems in the bible. None of those problems worry me.

Inerrancy does not bother me as I am a Catholic. But that is not the point of my question and inerrancy being an issue is not why this thread is in the apologetics forum.

If I were a non-believer, how should I explain the doctrine of the Bible’s inerrancy if there is one?

It goes to the point of why should I believe in the Bible if I can see errors in it?

The question may be paraphrased to be what is the correct interpretation of the Church’s teaching on the Bible’s inerrancy?

 

[Aris]

It is historically accurate at those times when history is being asserted

Exactly! So the question may be what are the historical books or where is history being asserted in the Bible?

 

[Rebecca_Fleming]

Aris, Thanks, I tried to tell him that they broke the legs in order to speed up suffocation but he denies it by saying that the SDA has incredible research ability and resources. He has left their church because they started knocking the unions but he still holds up their knowledge of the scripture as the best. I guess I need to understand more about the SDA if I am going to compete agsinst them.
Reb

 

[Aris]

Aris, Thanks, I tried to tell him that they broke the legs in order to speed up suffocation but he denies it by saying that the SDA has incredible research ability and resources. He has left their church because they started knocking the unions but he still holds up their knowledge of the scripture as the best. I guess I need to understand more about the SDA if I am going to compete agsinst them.
Reb

Rebecca,

That is our only weapon. We do need to study. Hopefully we come across a Catholic resource that can explain these things. However, there is no mainline research that says people who have broken legs are brought back to be crucified again.

So far, I have not really gotten a satisfactory answer to the Bible’s inerrancy as far as Church teaching goes but I will still persevere.