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miguel
Guest
That’s another good question for yourself.
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patg
Guest
Ok, we’ve adequately insulted each other… and I already answered this question in my previous post.
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miguel
Guest
:whacky: :whacky:
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buffalo
Guest
patg,
If the Bible is the Truth it surely contains history, math and science. We are talking here about the ultimate truth - God. Since it’s protected by the Holy Spirit it cannot deceive or be deceived.
To take a position that each and every writer decided with willful intent to write about the Truth through a non-lived experience is ludicrous. Then for God to put his stamp on it so the Truth cannot be verified it still more ludicrous.
Archeology is continually finding proofs of places and events that substantiate the Bible.
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patg
Guest
Yes it does. But what it contains in those areas is the truth as known at the time.
Yes the ultimate truth about God - not about math, science, medicine, or anything else. The truth in ALL those areas changes and evolves constantly, so how can it be the “ultimate truth”?
I agree and no one, including me, has suggested that.
And, as Jesus said, what is Truth? What possible reason is there to assume that all science contained in the bible is the Truth God is revealing to us?
Places and events are much different than science…
Science has shown that the nature of the universe is far different than the three-tiered model presumed by the ancients and referenced frequently in the bible…
Medicine has shown that disease is caused by germs and genetics, not by the sins of the individual or their parents as assumed in most of the bible…
Science has shown that storms are caused by low pressure sytems and earthquakes are caused by natural geologic forces…
The bible authors wrote using the accepted world view of their time, not ours. They told the truth as they knew it. Are you trying to make God responsible for the lack of scientific knowlege of those who wrote the bible?
God commanded that we not eat shellfish, that we not wear clothing of blended fabrics, that we not plant different crops in the same field, that we not enjoy a rare steak - was that the Truth? We don’t seem to have any problem reasoning our way out of those so why is it so hard to use our reason to realize that the bible doesn’t teach accurate science, history, etc.?
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miguel
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Actually Pilate said that…typical relativist that he was.
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buffalo
Guest
I still see you applying this to the Gospels in a wrong way.
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patg
Guest
I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have questions and didn’t want to grow in my understanding. Most of what I said above related to history comes from our church’s own documents, specifically in Dei Verbum where it states:
“…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.”
I don’t think the structure of the universe or the nature of disease is included here…
and to my points:
For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.
I am here to listen to others, please tell me how I applying things incorrectly?
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miguel
Guest
patg, you seem to be confusing truth with what is known about it. Truth is another word for reality, the way things really are about God and his creation. It doesn’t change. Our knowledge of it changes. God, as the creator of nature, put its laws into effect. These laws are part of the reality that God made. F=ma was in operation long before Newton identified it. At best, human knowledge encompasses a portion of reality. It grows over time but alot gets forgotten too. But unlike God, our knowledge will never encompass the whole of reality. We need God to reveal the truth about himself to us. This is the point of the exchange between Jesus and Pilate. Jesus came to testify to THE TRUTH (i.e., the way things really are, as opposed to man’s flawed conception of reality). The concept went over Pilate’s head: “what’s truth?” No doubt, as a Roman governor, he was exposed to all kinds of crazy ideas about reality. So it’s not surprising he had that attitude. To him, Jesus was just one more guy who thought he knew the truth.
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Gottle_of_Geer
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Gottle_of_Geer
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< brilliant idea > 
I think the difference between patg (in red corner) and les autres (in the blue corner) 
is in how to interpret that phrase “for the sake of salvation."”It can be read in “"…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."” -
- As a limiting term: those things, and those things only, comprise the solid, faithful and inerrant teaching which are “for the sake of salvation”
- As a term describing the purpose of inerrancy: it is for the sake of salvation in particular - not for the satisfaction of our curiosity in general. And it extends to everything in the sacred books.
Both interpretations leave ample room for critical scholars to do their work. Inerrancy is not the difficulty for critical scholarship, so much as some notions of how it functions.
The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.
*- *IOW: the interpreter has a recognised and legitimate part to play in explaining the meaning of the Bible - doing so, is not a usurpation of the responsibility of the bishops. Still less is it in itself anything for which to reproach or blame or fault these interpreters.
This teaching is in continuity with both Divino Afflante & the 1993 document. ##
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Donald45
Guest
For those with more than just a passing interest in the topic of this thread, I’d recommend a very good book on the subject:
Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extrabiblical Evidence (Eerdmans, 1995).
Young is a Christian (Protestant) and a professor of geology. This is perhaps the best text yet written on the subject of how Christians have dealt historically with the data of science in relation to the flood story in Genesis. A really fine work.
Happy reading!
In Christ,
Donald
Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extrabiblical Evidence (Eerdmans, 1995).
Young is a Christian (Protestant) and a professor of geology. This is perhaps the best text yet written on the subject of how Christians have dealt historically with the data of science in relation to the flood story in Genesis. A really fine work.
Happy reading!
In Christ,
Donald
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Ric
Guest
Yes, evolution is a hoax! 
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Gottle_of_Geer
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“The Lord of The Rings” is a modern example - it contains not a single historical fact (though it’s not difficult to imagine Fundamentalists five hundred years hence insisting that it is a reliable account of human history in the remote past - cf. also the historical evidence in “Planet of the Apes” for the destruction of NY) but it contains plenty of moral lessons.
One way of coping with Homer’s gods and their doings was to allegorise the Iliad & the Odyssey - gods who were not an offence to their worshippers, became so when those worshippers ceased to have the moral habits of their ancestors; whence arose the need to allegorise. What is so curious about the Bible, is that the profoundly unattractive god of some parts of the OT never went through this process. ##
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Gottle_of_Geer
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prophetdaniel
Guest
A professor mentioned in a class that Exodus was possibly written before Genesis.
Here is what I found doing a “was exodus written before genesis” web search through a search engine:
What Was The Earliest Writing That Was Put Into The Old Testament Canon?
blueletterbible.org/faq/nbi/400.html
Here is what I found doing a “was exodus written before genesis” web search through a search engine:
What Was The Earliest Writing That Was Put Into The Old Testament Canon?
blueletterbible.org/faq/nbi/400.html
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Ahimsa
Guest
It certainly makes sense that the biblical creation narratives in Genesis were written later than, say, Exodus. If you compare different religions across the globe, the encounter with God/Truth comes first (e.g., Muhammad in the cave, or Buddha under the tree); then later, creation accounts are written, most likely in order to place one’s encounter within a larger, cosmic context. For the Hebrews, they knew of God in the wilderness and Mt. Sinai first, and writing Genesis later on helps place that experience of God in a universal context.
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Gottle_of_Geer
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buffalo
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Gottle of Geer said:
Here is a better explanation - THE AUTHORS OF THE GOSPELS **[According to the Clementine Tradition]
**
**The Infancy Narratives
**
In a 1977 book, R.E.Brown, a leading Catholic Markan priority scholar, denied the historicity of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. Although he attracted a large following, he had not examined the narratives with an open mind. He was committed to the theory of Markan priority with its acceptance of late composition by anonymous non-apostolic authors unaware of each other, writing creative theological treatises rather than history.
Code:
From this presupposition and narrow perspective, Brown presumed that the only way the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke could possibly be historical, was if their authors had both copied an earlier tradition.
But as the infancy narratives did not repeat the same stories, he concluded that such a document could not have existed, and therefore the first chapters of these Gospels were not historical ((RBM 34-36)). But once the Markan theory is rejected the case put forward by Brown collapses.**
**
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Jim_B
Guest
History gives way to legend . . .
Legend gives way to myth . . . .
And history is then regarded as myth . . .
Original sin cannot be reconciled with random evolution.
Adam and Eve had souls, they were made in the image of
God. Evolution puts them in the uterus of a brute non-human / who then gives birth to a human.
Reason alone makes this too unbelievable to consider.
Legend gives way to myth . . . .
And history is then regarded as myth . . .
Original sin cannot be reconciled with random evolution.
Adam and Eve had souls, they were made in the image of
God. Evolution puts them in the uterus of a brute non-human / who then gives birth to a human.
Reason alone makes this too unbelievable to consider.
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