Scripture and Historical Truth

[rcjones]

Well, rcjones, there’s several hundred others, where that one came from. You’re missing the point…

Okay, here’s your next challenge:

2 Samuel 21:19: Elhanan, son of Jair, killed Goliath of Gath.

1 Samuel 17:4-51: David, son of Jesse, killed Goliath of Gath.

I got the point. You simply copy someone else’s list without making any attempt to research it or reconcile it yourself, and you call that ‘thinking’.

It is obvious to the most casual observer that the two events are completely different. One occurred when David was a shepherd and he killed one giant, the other occurred much later when he was a military leader and he and his men killed four giants, one of whom also had the name Goliath.

You find it impossible that two men from Gath might have the same name. But considering that they only used one name, it is more likely than not. Heck Foreman named all his sons George. Should George Foreman go to college and George Foreman not go to college, by your standard it would be false history to record it as such.

Why should anyone here play your game when you put absolutely no effort into posting your list? Why should anyone pretend that you are doing anything but spamming?

You want a real contradiction? God hates sin and yet loves even you. When you get that one figured out, the others will all be clear as well.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Okay, literalist believers in the infallibility of the Bible as a history book, here is your next contradiction…

1 Kings 16:6-8, it says that Elah, son of Baasha, began his reign as King of Israel upon the death of his father, in the 26th year of Asa, King of Judah.

2 Chronicles 16:1 et seq. has Baasha attacking Asa in the 36th year of Asa’s reign.

But he’s DEAD, isn’t he?

St. Augustine writing to St. Jerome: For, I admit to your Charity that it is from those books alone of the Scriptures, which are now called canonical, that I have learned to pay them such honor and respect as to believe most firmly that not one of their authors has erred in writing anything at all. If I do find anything in those books which seems contrary to truth, I decide that either the text [particular copy] is corrupt, or the translator did not follow what was really said, or that I failed to understand it.

It is disrepectful to Scripture for you to immediately assume that any apparent contradiction, which seems an error to you, is in fact an error made under Divine inspiration. It doesn’t matter how many alleged errors you present, each time you make the same mistake of assuming that what seems an error must be an error.

Pope Pius X published a Syllabus of Errors, in which he condemned the idea that “Divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, n. 11).

“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 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.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

 

[rcjones]

Who bought Joseph’s grave in Shechem from Hamor?

Jacob? Joshua 24:32.

Abraham? Acts 7:16.

Abraham bought a grave, Jacob bought the field around it.

Even if they had bought the same piece twice it would not be a surprise since the Canaanites were denying Jacob access to the wells that Abraham had dug.

You have no evidence that says this ‘challenge’ or any other is not historical, you simply parrot the scoffers who went before you.

You wouldn’t know evidence if it bit you. It’s your turn to show historical evidence that they did not both purchase something. And you cannot use anything from the Bible since it is not ‘reliable’ in your own eyes.

Where is YOUR evidence?

 

[Peter_Dawson]

I got the point. You simply copy someone else’s list without making any attempt to research it or reconcile it yourself, and you call that ‘thinking’.

It is obvious to the most casual observer that the two events are completely different. One occurred when David was a shepherd and he killed one giant, the other occurred much later when he was a military leader and he and his men killed four giants, one of whom also had the name Goliath.

You find it impossible that two men from Gath might have the same name. But considering that they only used one name, it is more likely than not. Heck Foreman named all his sons George. Should George Foreman go to college and George Foreman not go to college, by your standard it would be false history to record it as such.

Why should anyone here play your game when you put absolutely no effort into posting your list? Why should anyone pretend that you are doing anything but spamming?

You want a real contradiction? God hates sin and yet loves even you. When you get that one figured out, the others will all be clear as well.

This has been researched endlessly. You disagree with most competent non-fundamentalist Bible commentators, who say that this is almost certainly an error. There was only ONE Goliath of Gath, not two.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Abraham bought a grave, Jacob bought the field around it.

Even if they had bought the same piece twice it would not be a surprise since the Canaanites were denying Jacob access to the wells that Abraham had dug.

You have no evidence that says this ‘challenge’ or any other is not historical, you simply parrot the scoffers who went before you.

You wouldn’t know evidence if it bit you. It’s your turn to show historical evidence that they did not both purchase something. And you cannot use anything from the Bible since it is not ‘reliable’ in your own eyes.

Where is YOUR evidence?

Think, dear friend: Who is “scoffing”? Me, who rejects that the Bible was intended by God to be a history book, and accepts that the Bible is inaccurate, historically? Or you, who does a hundred different variety of dances to explain a hundred different variety of errors, to pretend that the errors aren’t real, and thus force upon the historically-inaccurate sacred Bible meanings that aren’t even there?

You know, sometimes the innacuracies appear to be intended by God.

By correcting them with false rationalizations, you “correct” God’s intended message out of existence.

 

[rcjones]

This has been researched endlessly. You disagree with most competent non-fundamentalist Bible commentators, who say that this is almost certainly an error. There was only ONE Goliath of Gath, not two.

Your answer denies the facts that in one narrative David is a boy shepherd and in the other he is the military leader. In one case the boy slew one giant, in the other, the military unit slew four. I disagree with the assertion that your commentators are competent.

Furthermore, in none of your “challenges” have you challenged anything.

When you give two references, you are merely re-stating the Biblical propositional statements, then asserting them to be false on their face. An assertion is not argument.

You have presented no evidence, since simply restating a proposition is not evidence.

The only thing required to falsify a claim that something is false on its face is a simple “plausible” answer. If there is a plausible answer, then it cannot be false “on its face.”

The easiest answer that answers them all, is that you misunderstand the nature of the claim of infallibility of the scriptures. The claim for most who claim it is that the original manuscripts were perfect. This allows for transcription errors by copyists. Although I do not believe this to be true for all of your alleged discrepancies, it is all that is required logically to counter your “false on its face” claim.

Done here. I hope to have more productive conversations with you in the typology threads since you give more thought to them.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Please, dear friend, explain this next challenge.

In Acts 5:35-39, Gamaliel, who taught Paul, gives a speech. The speech is basically impossible. Gamaliel states that the revolt of Theudas – which actually occurred around 46 A.D., occurred BEFORE the revolt of Judas the Galilean, which happened around 7 A.D.

That would be like President Truman telling Congress that the Korean War occurred BEFORE World War I.

I have read that non-fundamentalist Bible commentators by-and-large also agree that Gamaliel would have given his speech around 35 A.D., about 10 years before Theudas’ revolt, so that his speech refers to something that had not even occurred yet as a past event. But, I have not personally researched the second point.

Biblical fundamentalist who waste their time trying to defend that the Bible is a perfect history book make up other “Judas the Galileans” of which there is zero historical evidence – zero – to explain Gamaliel’s speech.

 

[Ron_Conte]

“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 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.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

"St. Jerome’s teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error: So far is it from being the case that error can be compatible with inspiration, that, on the contrary, it not only of its very nature precludes the presence of error, but as necessarily excludes it and forbids it as God, the Supreme Truth, necessarily cannot be the Author of error. " (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 16)

“Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception, and that no error can occur in the inspired text…” (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 21)

“…they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, n. 22).

It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Don Conte: "It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors. "

I don’t disagree with this.

Oddly – no joke or exaggeration at all!!! – it is YOU who disagrees with this, when you insist that an expression of the error-free-ness is that the Bible is a perfect history book.

Pay close attention:

If one way in which the Bible “contains no error” is that it reflects history discussed by itself perfectly, then explain this:

(A) 2 Samuel 21:19: Elhanan, son of Jair, killed Goliath of Gath.

(B) 1 Samuel 17:4-51: David, son of Jesse, killed Goliath of Gath.

If the Bible was not intended to teach perfect history, then you are not looking at an error by the Holy Spirit. You instead are looking at accurately-copied error by a royal biographer.

If someone like you insists that the Bible is the perfect history book because of the inspiration of the Spirit – and that seems to be your position – then you are maintaining that the two cited items, which contradict themselves, are inspired history.

Who, under these circumstances, is contradicting the Magisterium?

Who is guilty of “heresy”?

Does it make you feel good to call someone else a “heretic”?

Why not, gentle friend, withhold judgment, and love, and listen?

All here know what you are going to do, now: You are going to do one of the “dances” that are “danced” to try to square the dozens of contradictions with the radical position that the Bible is functionally the world’s finest history book, because it is “perfect.”

Pick one:

(A) Two “Goliaths.”

(B) “Goliath of Gath” represents members of a family, not individuals.

(C) ONE of them represents a member of the family, not Goliath.

(D) Ehanan is another name for David, and Jair is another name for “Jesse.”

(E) David was placed under Elhanan.

(F) Elhanan was placed under David.

(G) Copyist’s error.

This is what happened when I asked about the error in Genesis about the “tree in the middle of the garden.” One verse in your “perfect history book” says that the Tree of Life was in the middle of the Garden. The other verse says that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the middle of the Garden. One member chose this dance: Two trees in the middle. Another member chose this dance: One tree, two names. A rabbi I know tried this approach: The second tree was a hedge around the first, so that they formed a kind of bullseye in the middle of the garden.

Maybe it was just an error in the telling of the story. Maybe it was two different stories jammed together by the Final Redactor.

The point is, the “perfect history” concept is what creates the problem.

 

[DeannaMarie]

“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 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.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

"St. Jerome’s teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error: So far is it from being the case that error can be compatible with inspiration, that, on the contrary, it not only of its very nature precludes the presence of error, but as necessarily excludes it and forbids it as God, the Supreme Truth, necessarily cannot be the Author of error. " (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 16)

“Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception, and that no error can occur in the inspired text…” (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 21)

“…they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, n. 22).

It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors.

Ron, your quotes are great!

 

[patg]

"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…

Writing fiction or myth or poetry to teach the truth is NOT an error.

*"For **truth **is set forth and expressed **differently *in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. "

"St. Jerome’s teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error: So far is it from being the case that error can be compatible with inspiration, that, on the contrary, it not only of its very nature precludes the presence of error, but as necessarily excludes it and forbids it as God, the Supreme Truth, necessarily cannot be the Author of error. " (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 16)

“Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception, and that no error can occur in the inspired text…” (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 21)

“…they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, n. 22).

You need to show a single instance in all your quotes where it is stated exactly what constitutes an “error” and where it says that the Holy Spirit inspires BOTH the truth AND the literary form the author must use to teach that truth.

It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors.

For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.

Since the authors of scripture wrote based on the customary and characteristic knowledge of their time, it is reasonable to declare that they did not make any errors based on what they knew. We know now that they did make errors - errors in biology, geography, science, event times, and any other number of things which have nothing to do with salvation.

For example, if the one of the customary ways of emphasizing someone’s greatness was to say that they lived a long time, then saying that a certain prophet died at the age of 600 years in*** not*** an error, based on the church’s statement. Likewise, if another customary way of emphasizing someone’s greatness was to write a fictional Infancy Narrative which included celestial events and singing spirits, etc, then Matthew and Luke weren’t making errors when they invented their stories of Jesus’ birth.

You really shouldn’t ignore the dogmatic statement that supports this:

"…the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. "

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Hmm… I would think that being able to identify both the alleged contradictions proposed by the flesh AND the unity of scripture as seen through the eyes of faith would indicate a higher capacity to think, than the one who can only proclaim the lies of the serpent.

I would also think that being able to identify the alleged contradiction as well as it’s source would indicate that I also have a nature of flesh, and rather than presuming that I was speaking judgmentally to others, one might consider that, as a sinner, I am quite familiar with the sin nature that would misdirect us.

It is my own hardness of heart that always seeks to accuse God.

Job accused God - to be angry with God can be a sign of a faith that is not dead, but living. Should we not accuse God ? Or is God so weak that he has to run away & hide in heaven because he can’t face us ? If God were limited or a god, I’d agree with you - but a God Who is so unimaginably ultra-perfect in so many ways needs to take responsibility for the state of the world. He could have moved Adam freely so that Adam would in total freedom not sin - He works in our wills without making us puppets, and what he does in us, he can do in others. The Bible & the Church together make Him responsible for all we do, the evil no less than the good.​

So while excusing God is merciful to Him, it lets Him get away with not facing His responsibilities. If with all our misery, sin & weakness we must and can - so can God. God is not a man - but He is, in some sense, a moral agent. More: He is the God of Righteousness - & if that is not totally unmeaning, & if we are made in His likeness, it follows that if we have any true sense of right & wrong what is good in His eyes is not wholly alien to what seems good in ours: that what we call good is a faint & diluted version of what we should call good. God’s Mercy is not what man calls savagery - to pray for God’s life, is not an asking for what to us is death. “Our Father in Heaven” is not “Our Devil in Heaven”. This similiarity between God & creatures, however inaccessible to us, is not non-existent. So our moral sense is not utterly deceitful - to say that God is Good, must mean that Divine Goodness is goodness, and cannot be wickedness. If God is Good, the the badness in the world, unless it is pure illusion, needs to be accounted for. And God has to be taken seriously. Which is why God is “in the dock”.

To say this is not hardness of heart, because it does not presuppose impenitence. Honesty with God is a good thing - not an evil.

It is my own hardness of heart with which I struggle to put to death daily.

It is a rather rash assumption that I would claim that one must stop thinking. Think away… But “cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm.”

When Eve approached the tree, she approached it in rebellion rather than faith. If one approaches Christ in rebellion, he is the tree of Death, if in faith, the tree of Life.

Quoting Jeremiah is all very well, but the text you want us to treat as non-contradictory (&, it seems (?) as historical fact) cant be saved by being allegorised. It’s not allegorical, & a weakness of allegory is that it can make any text mean anything (in the Bible or not).​

One could claim that the bush in Exodus 3 was a prediction in allegorical form of the two George Bushes. The only limit to allegorising is the ingenuity of the allegoriser; unless the literary form of a text, at some level, is that it is an allegory. If a text is made allegorical when it is no such thing, it becomes subject to nothing more stable than the whim of the allegoriser. It’s true that all sorts of pious ideas can be got from allegories-that-are-based-on-non-allegorical-texts, but they can be got out by thereader only because he has put them there in the first place. That is not reading the Bible - it’s the equivalent of looking down the shaft of a well only to see one’s own silly face at the bottom of it; & while the Bible is a sort of mirror, it is not that sort.

If the Bible is really to nourish us & to transform us, we have to avoid pouring our own notions into it - we have to see, as far as this possible to us, what it means. And because it is a very old compilation, from cultures with modes of thought that are largely unfamiliar, we have, somehow, to make allowances for its sheer difference from books that come from our cultures. And sometimes, this results in finding that what it’s saying is not what traditional interptetations say it says. But why should that be anything but good ?

 

[Ron_Conte]

Sacred Scripture has two levels of meaning:

1. The words refer to things. This includes literal and figurative assertions.

Example of a literal assertion:

[Matthew]
{2:1} And so, when Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of king Herod, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,

Jesus was literally born in Bethlehem in Judah, during the reign of king Herod, and Magi literally arrived from the East in Jerusalem.

[Hebrews]
{12:29} For our God is a consuming fire.

God is not literally a fire, consuming or otherwise. This is a figure of speech, indicating that God is active, that he judges and punishes, that he actively accomplishes his will and nothing can stand in his way.

1. The things refer to other things. This is called the spiritual sense, and requires interpretation.

Example: in the Song of Songs, the words refer to the marriage of Solomon to a woman from Africa. The groom represents Christ and the bride represents the Church on the spiritual level of meaning.

“Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q 1, A 1.
By literal sense, St. Thomas means the literal/figurative level of meaning. Since the spiritual level of meaning is based upon the literal/figurative level of meaning, it is not possible for the literal/figurative level of meaning to be false while the spiritual level of meaning is true.

“…they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, n. 22).

The idea that there are errors in the Bible on history, geography, science, biology, or any other subject area is a condemned opinion and is material heresy.

Now certainly one may consider which assertions of the Bible are literal and which are figurative, and one may consider which truths are being asserted by the literal/figurative and by the spiritual levels of meaning. But if any one claims that the Bible asserts an error or a falsehood on any subject, that person is claiming a condemned idea.

Concerning the question as to what constitutes error, how is it that you yourselves use the word error to state that there are errors in the Bible, but then you claim not to know what the word means? An error is a false assertion. At times it may be difficult to understand what the Bible is asserting, but never does the Bible assert any falsehood.

“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 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.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

 

[patg]

{2:1} And so, when Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of king Herod, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,

Jesus was literally born in Bethlehem in Judah, during the reign of king Herod, and Magi literally arrived from the East in Jerusalem.

That is not a valid assumption. If the author was writing fiction, then there is no reason to apply the “error free” criteria to the places, people, and actions in the story. The theological truth of the story is what is error free. We don’t have to turn this into a debate on the fictional aspects of the birth stories (although I believe and the church allows me to believe that they are mostly fictional – textbook examples of the classical literary form known as an Infancy Narrative). An easier example would be that there probably wasn’t a literal “good samaritan” that Jesus used in a story but we don’t say that this is an error because fictional teaching stories are, …well they are fiction.

It is true that Jesus and/or the gospel writer usually announced that a parable was coming which makes them easier to recognize as fiction. There is, however, no requirement in authorship that this be done and there are plenty of other clues as to a fictional nature for stories such as the Infancy Narratives and Jonah. That is why we have to consider the contemporary literary forms and understand the historical context.

If a reader from 2000 years ago read something written today which said “it was raining cats and dogs” or “it was hotter than hell” without a proper historical context, they would say that the document contained errors. We would say that it is without error. Thusly, the broad quotes you keep repeating only produce more arguments than they settle between those who don’t agree on the semantics and basic definitions.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Don Conte: "It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors. "

I don’t disagree with this.

Oddly – no joke or exaggeration at all!!! – it is YOU who disagrees with this, when you insist that an expression of the error-free-ness is that the Bible is a perfect history book.

Pay close attention:

If one way in which the Bible “contains no error” is that it reflects history discussed by itself perfectly, then explain this:

(A) 2 Samuel 21:19: Elhanan, son of Jair, killed Goliath of Gath.

(B) 1 Samuel 17:4-51: David, son of Jesse, killed Goliath of Gath.

If the Bible was not intended to teach perfect history, then you are not looking at an error by the Holy Spirit. You instead are looking at accurately-copied error by a royal biographer.

If someone like you insists that the Bible is the perfect history book because of the inspiration of the Spirit – and that seems to be your position – then you are maintaining that the two cited items, which contradict themselves, are inspired history.

Who, under these circumstances, is contradicting the Magisterium?

Who is guilty of “heresy”?

Does it make you feel good to call someone else a “heretic”?

Why not, gentle friend, withhold judgment, and love, and listen?

All here know what you are going to do, now: You are going to do one of the “dances” that are “danced” to try to square the dozens of contradictions with the radical position that the Bible is functionally the world’s finest history book, because it is “perfect.”

Pick one:

(A) Two “Goliaths.”

(B) “Goliath of Gath” represents members of a family, not individuals.

(C) ONE of them represents a member of the family, not Goliath.

(D) Ehanan is another name for David, and Jair is another name for “Jesse.”

(E) David was placed under Elhanan.

(F) Elhanan was placed under David.

(G) Copyist’s error.

This is what happened when I asked about the error in Genesis about the “tree in the middle of the garden.” One verse in your “perfect history book” says that the Tree of Life was in the middle of the Garden. The other verse says that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the middle of the Garden. One member chose this dance: Two trees in the middle. Another member chose this dance: One tree, two names. A rabbi I know tried this approach: The second tree was a hedge around the first, so that they formed a kind of bullseye in the middle of the garden.

Maybe it was just an error in the telling of the story. Maybe it was two different stories jammed together by the Final Redactor.

The point is, the “perfect history” concept is what creates the problem.

The inerrantist position would look pretty silly if the composers & compilers of the texts were not bothered by contradictions (such as the identity of who killed Goliath or his brother - for 1 Chronicles has this:​

• [1 Chronicles 20:5 (http://forums.catholic-questions.org/passage/?book_id=13&chapter=20&verse=5&version=31&context=verse) In another battle with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

It seems there might be three traditions as to who killed whom. I don’t think they need reconciling, because the idea that texts must be non-contradictory looks like an assumption from outside the Bible; I think we are worrying about something that did not bother the Biblical authors.

Reconciling & harmonising texts not only requires a gigantic amount of work - it may keep people from worrying, but quite apart from its being built on shifting sand, because of the way in which texts change meaning (as with Shem & his 600 year-long-life); how do the harmonisers know their solutions are accurate ? There is often no way this can be known.

Why attribute to something (in this case, the Bible) qualities it does not need, which are not in any text of it claimed for it ? The whole fuss arises not from the Bible but from the idea that it cannot be imperfect - & there is not a scrap of exegetical proof for the idea that it’s perfect. Inerrantists do not even try to make such an case. AFAICS the only reason to believe the idea is that it has been held for long by lots of Christians worth listening to on other grounds - but how does that make it true for all time to come ? Perceptions of truth often depend on things that are changeable - it was true that manned flight was impossible, once: but not after the Wright Brothers flew the first aeroplane in 1903. It was true in 1700 that Assyria had left next to no trace - but not after the 1840s. Examples of such change could be multiplied.

The Fathers could think the Bible was free of error because they were protected from seeing errors in it by their extensive ignorance of aspects of it: a protection not afforded to the moderns. This means the issue of inerrancy is not the same for moderns as for the Fathers. The Fathers could think the Bible error-free for a second reason; their methods of interpretation. A list of place-names in Numbers allegorised into something with a spiritual meaning does not function as a list of place names - it does not raise any difficulties for the account of the Exodus; it’s been given a different function, so it functions as an (inerrant) allegory instead. So the inerrant Bible of the Fathers is not the inerrant Bible of moderns, who have a better understanding of it in every way than the Fathers could have had. Were the Fathers even concerned with inerrantly accurate history, as modern inerrantists are ? Inerrancy, like truth, may be of many kinds.

So the idea that the Bible is totally free of error (apart from grammatical blunders, apparently ) badly needs to be reviewed & reconsidered; quoting screeds of Fathers & Popes & so on proves nothing. People need to deal with the difficulties in the inerrantist case.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Don Conte: "It is material heresy to claim that Sacred Scripture contains errors. "

I don’t disagree with this.

Oddly – no joke or exaggeration at all!!! – it is YOU who disagrees with this, when you insist that an expression of the error-free-ness is that the Bible is a perfect history book.

Pay close attention:

If one way in which the Bible “contains no error” is that it reflects history discussed by itself perfectly, then explain this:

(A) 2 Samuel 21:19: Elhanan, son of Jair, killed Goliath of Gath.

To be precise:​

• 2 Samuel 21:19 And there was again a battle at Gob with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, smote Goliath the Gittite; now the shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam

“Bethlehemite” = ha-Lachmi - so, in this verse:

• 1 Chronicles 20:5 There was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam

“Elhanan son of Jair”/“Jaare-oregim” could be killing “Bethlehemite”, “Goliath the Gittite”/“the brother of Goliath the Gittite”. There is no way of telling, from the text, whether or where “Lachmi” is a personal name or a word indicating origin; apart from the article “ha-”, which easily be overlooked (there is very interesting discrepancy between the Hebrew & Septuagint of 1 Sam.14; scribal error led to the loss of a few verses of the chapter, affecting the entire textual tradition in Hebrew).

Between them, the three texts suggest that the incident or incidents has or have been garbled:

Who killed ?

• David
• Elhanan

Who was killed ?

• Goliath of Gath
• Lachmi
• a Bethlehemite

(B) 1 Samuel 17:4-51: David, son of Jesse, killed Goliath of Gath.

If the Bible was not intended to teach perfect history, then you are not looking at an error by the Holy Spirit. You instead are looking at accurately-copied error by a royal biographer.

If someone like you insists that the Bible is the perfect history book because of the inspiration of the Spirit – and that seems to be your position – then you are maintaining that the two cited items, which contradict themselves, are inspired history.

Who, under these circumstances, is contradicting the Magisterium?

Who is guilty of “heresy”?

Does it make you feel good to call someone else a “heretic”?

Why not, gentle friend, withhold judgment, and love, and listen?

All here know what you are going to do, now: You are going to do one of the “dances” that are “danced” to try to square the dozens of contradictions with the radical position that the Bible is functionally the world’s finest history book, because it is “perfect.”

Pick one:

(A) Two “Goliaths.”

(B) “Goliath of Gath” represents members of a family, not individuals.

(C) ONE of them represents a member of the family, not Goliath.

(D) Ehanan is another name for David, and Jair is another name for “Jesse.”

(E) David was placed under Elhanan.

(F) Elhanan was placed under David.

(G) Copyist’s error.

This is what happened when I asked about the error in Genesis about the “tree in the middle of the garden.” One verse in your “perfect history book” says that the Tree of Life was in the middle of the Garden. The other verse says that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the middle of the Garden. One member chose this dance: Two trees in the middle. Another member chose this dance: One tree, two names. A rabbi I know tried this approach: The second tree was a hedge around the first, so that they formed a kind of bullseye in the middle of the garden.

I prefer to think of them as being like Tolkien’s Two Trees , that support one another. At least Tolkien is totally inerrant The idea of inerrancy is not particularly religious - the idea of a Perfect Book is very beguiling: Homer supplied that for the Greeks, as did Virgil for the Romans.​

Maybe it was just an error in the telling of the story. Maybe it was two different stories jammed together by the Final Redactor.

The point is, the “perfect history” concept is what creates the problem.

​

What is the good in an inerrant Bible which leaves the identity of who was killed by whom & on what occasion in the dark ? That’s a fat lot of good The perfect history book:

• A - can’t get its story or stories straight
• B - is to have its perfection & inerrancy vindicated by being so garbled, that it might as well be errant. Alternative (G) is best not resorted to, if the intention is to try to shore up the alleged inerrancy of the Bible. This idea that the Bible is shown to be inerrant because the text is corrupt, is an argument that should never have seen the light of day.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Several Popes have definitively taught that the Bible is absolutely immune from error. Therefore, giving examples of alleged errors is contrary to Catholic teaching. If you assert that the Bible contains an error, you assert material heresy.

One can legitimately dispute whether the literal/figurative level of meaning (the direct level of meaning) is literal or figurative in a particular case. But the direct level of meaning (the words refer to things) cannot be false (Summa, I, 1. 10).

The problem with the claim that a passage is fiction is that the entire direct (literal OR figurative) level of meaning is being asserted to be false. If the statements made are fictional, then the spiritual level of meaing loses its force since it is not based on truth. There are figures in Sacred Scripture, but there is no fiction.

Back to the original topic of this thread: Historical Truth

The Catholic Faith does not stand if the historical assertions in Scripture are false or unreliable. The Catholic Faith is based on historical events and not merely a set of teachings:

Creation
the creation of the human race
the fall from grace (original sin) of Adam and Eve
the lives of the Patriarchs and of the Prophets
the wandering in the desert
the entrance to the promised land
The promises to the Israelites by God
the Immaculate Conception
the Annunciation to Zechariah
the Annunication to Mary
the Incarnation
The life of Christ
The ministry of Christ
The teachings and example of Christ
The establishment of all seven Sacraments by Christ
The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ
The acts of the Apostles

If some historical events in Scripture are false, or fictional, and others are not, then there is no way to determine which are to be believed.

[1 Corinthians]
{15:12} Now if Christ is preached, that he rose again from the dead, how is it that some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
{15:13} For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen.
{15:14} And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is useless, and your faith is also useless.
{15:15} Then, too, we would be found to be false witnesses of God, because we would have given testimony against God, saying that he had raised up Christ, when he had not raised him up, if, indeed, the dead do not rise again.
{15:16} For if the dead do not rise again, then neither has Christ risen again.
{15:17} But if Christ has not risen, then your faith is vain; for you would still be in your sins.
{15:18} Then, too, those who have fallen asleep in Christ would have perished.

 

[patg]

If some historical events in Scripture are false, or fictional, and others are not, then there is no way to determine which are to be believed.

*That *is an untenable opinion. And, once again, you are mistakenly equating the truth/falsehood of writing with the literary form (i.e. fiction). You are also mistakenly mixing the words “some historical events” with the word “fictional” as if you know they are “historical”.

How do* you* know that Alexander the Great wasn’t the child of a God? His Infancy Narrative certainly reads like a historical event with the same components as that of Jesus.

Whether the events in a story actually occured is quite often not relevant to the truth of the message being expressed (which is one of the reasons the church only requires belief in the literal nature of a small handful of stories). If you are concerned about whether the depicted events occured, there are many ways to analyze the information in an attempt to determine the literary form. Scripture scholars have worked on this for centuries and there are classes and books which can help you.

 

[diggerdomer]

Several Popes have definitively taught that the Bible is absolutely immune from error. Therefore, giving examples of alleged errors is contrary to Catholic teaching. If you assert that the Bible contains an error, you assert material heresy.

That personal opinoin should be interpreted in light of authentic Church teaching, e.g. the Catechism para 105 ff. scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c2a3.htm#II

 

[Ron_Conte]

"St. Jerome’s teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error: So far is it from being the case that error can be compatible with inspiration, that, on the contrary, it not only of its very nature precludes the presence of error, but as necessarily excludes it and forbids it as God, the Supreme Truth, necessarily cannot be the Author of error. " (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 16)

“But although these words of our predecessor leave no room for doubt or dispute, it grieves us to find that not only men outside, but even children of the Catholic Church - nay, what is a peculiar sorrow to us, even clerics and professors of sacred learning - who in their own conceit either openly repudiate or at least attack in secret the Church’s teaching on this point.” (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, n. 18 )

“…they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, n. 22).

“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 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.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

The absolute immunity from error of Scripture is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, which has been solemnly defined. The rejection of this teaching has been already often condemned. Therefore, obstinate doubt or outright rejection of this teaching is material heresy.

Certainly, there is still room for interpretation, for deciding whether a passage is to be understood literally or figuratively. However, this first level of meaning, by which the text is true either literally or figuratively, must always be true.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ.

By literal sense is understood the literal or figurative meaning of the text.