What does it mean for the Bible to be inerrant?

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severntofall said:
Actually, that wasn’t a contradiction that I would have used myself. I’ve already pointed to the blatant lies found within the G of Matthew. Consider the contradictions between the creation stories. In the first creation story god created man and woman simultaneously, but only after he created all the creations in the land, air and sea. In the second account, god made man, then created the beast of the land and birds of the air. He then created woman. This is just one of the massive contradictions and lies found within the book. There is no way both accounts are true. In the first two pages of the bible, two contradictory accounts of creation and it just gets worse after that.
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And the authors obviously realized this.
The point is the teaching.
 
Jacob seemed to have preffered to lay his head upon a rock to nap. The rock?? CHRIST:thumbsup:
 
catholic1seeks said:
And the authors obviously realized this.
The point is the teaching.
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Teaching what, that truth is less important than indoctrination? How much of the bible has to be made up or contradictory before the book is invalidated?
 
catholic1seeks said:
The authors didn’t need to; it was evident at the time.
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Was it; to whom? Explain why such a tiny percentage of the world population, living is a tiny portion of the world realized something so evident? What is evident is that every culture in every part of the world has made up their own religions and gods and the Hebrews were differnt. Did you know that Yahweh before he was the god of the Hebrews was proably the Midean volcano god that lived on the now extinct volcano of Mt Sinai?
 
Faith is one requirement for reading scripture for what God intends to teach us in it.

Another requirement is humility.

A priest on EWTN by the name of Fr. John Corapi puts it this way. A thousand difficulties do not add up to one doubt.

For example. The Old Testament (“Hebrew Scripture”) was written in Hebrew and Aramaic (two languages which use the same alphabet). I’ve read elsewhere that the second language was Chaldee. That discrepancy is a difficulty, until I look up or run across the information that provides the resolution.

In Hebrew, consider that there were no vowels, no punctuation, no footnotes, no indentation, no parentheses, and lots of other stuff, like including that it was written down by hand and transcribed many times. Modern scholars (Jewish and Christian) do not even know the translation of some of the words in the old Hebrew.

There’s going to be a lot of difficulties from the get go. I’m reading some Jewish commentaries now and doing some reading about the Talmud (the Jewish commentary on scripture). They’ve been studying the Torah for over 20 centuries and they’re still debating what the meaning of various words and phrases is.

This does not lead me to “doubt” scripture. I think it’s wonderful that God has given us something to sink our teeth into, trying to figure this out.

Oh, sure. I’ve seen a big book about “problems in the Bible.” One of the problems is the value of pi. The Bible says or infers that the value is 3.

Now, mathematicians have taught us that the value of pi is irrational, it has an unending decimal value after the 3, as far as anybody has bothered to check. But, hold your horses.

“3” is just an estimate like many other scientific values that have been determined and revised over the ages, like the speed of light. I have a degree in a scientific area, and scientific values ALWAYS have an uncertainty associated with them. If no uncertainty is stated, then the uncertainty is in the last digit, in this case, 3. So, one would REASONABLY conclude that the value of pi was 3 with a range of uncertainty of 2 to 4.
And, we know that it falls into that range.

The point is, that 3 was a sufficient value to express the sense of the scripture. It was not an architectural value. And, we accept that scripture was given to mankind to be expressed in its imprecise ways, at the times it was given.

Arguing about the value of pi is putting more emphasis on a point that is not given by scripture.

It is only by tradition that the Jews, for example, attribute the first five books of the Bible to Moses. Well, at the end of Deuteronomy, the death of Moses is documented, so how can Moses have written that book? Of course, modern scholarship has given us better insights about the writing of those scriptures. It is not scripture that is wrong, it is the tradition that is wrong. There is a reason for the tradition, because Moses is so prominent, and someplace it says that God told Moses to write all this stuff down.

Faith draws us ever closer into the Bible. If someone gets hung up on the failure of a test that they put to scripture, that is their problem. Christians and Jews both believe in reading and studying the Bible (as each defines “Bible”) and that is what is a part of these faiths.

At some point, like this post, we cut things off, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t “more” to consider and that there aren’t “more” answers to the difficulties that men pose to scripture.
 
Crumpy said:
Faith is one requirement for reading scripture for what God intends to teach us in it.

Another requirement is humility.

A priest on EWTN by the name of Fr. John Corapi puts it this way. A thousand difficulties do not add up to one doubt.

For example. The Old Testament (“Hebrew Scripture”) was written in Hebrew and Aramaic (two languages which use the same alphabet). I’ve read elsewhere that the second language was Chaldee. That discrepancy is a difficulty, until I look up or run across the information that provides the resolution.

In Hebrew, consider that there were no vowels, no punctuation, no footnotes, no indentation, no parentheses, and lots of other stuff, like including that it was written down by hand and transcribed many times. Modern scholars (Jewish and Christian) do not even know the translation of some of the words in the old Hebrew.

There’s going to be a lot of difficulties from the get go. I’m reading some Jewish commentaries now and doing some reading about the Talmud (the Jewish commentary on scripture). They’ve been studying the Torah for over 20 centuries and they’re still debating what the meaning of various words and phrases is.

This does not lead me to “doubt” scripture. I think it’s wonderful that God has given us something to sink our teeth into, trying to figure this out.

Oh, sure. I’ve seen a big book about “problems in the Bible.” One of the problems is the value of pi. The Bible says or infers that the value is 3.

Now, mathematicians have taught us that the value of pi is irrational, it has an unending decimal value after the 3, as far as anybody has bothered to check. But, hold your horses.

“3” is just an estimate like many other scientific values that have been determined and revised over the ages, like the speed of light. I have a degree in a scientific area, and scientific values ALWAYS have an uncertainty associated with them. If no uncertainty is stated, then the uncertainty is in the last digit, in this case, 3. So, one would REASONABLY conclude that the value of pi was 3 with a range of uncertainty of 2 to 4.
And, we know that it falls into that range.

The point is, that 3 was a sufficient value to express the sense of the scripture. It was not an architectural value. And, we accept that scripture was given to mankind to be expressed in its imprecise ways, at the times it was given.

Arguing about the value of pi is putting more emphasis on a point that is not given by scripture.

It is only by tradition that the Jews, for example, attribute the first five books of the Bible to Moses. Well, at the end of Deuteronomy, the death of Moses is documented, so how can Moses have written that book? Of course, modern scholarship has given us better insights about the writing of those scriptures. It is not scripture that is wrong, it is the tradition that is wrong. There is a reason for the tradition, because Moses is so prominent, and someplace it says that God told Moses to write all this stuff down.

Faith draws us ever closer into the Bible. If someone gets hung up on the failure of a test that they put to scripture, that is their problem. Christians and Jews both believe in reading and studying the Bible (as each defines “Bible”) and that is what is a part of these faiths.

At some point, like this post, we cut things off, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t “more” to consider and that there aren’t “more” answers to the difficulties that men pose to scripture.
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Faith is many thing to many people: faith is a reason to fly a plane into a building; detonate a bomb in a crowded market place or burn an innocent woman (i.e.a which) to her death. Ultimately, faith is an excuse to believe what you want to believe, fact and evidence be damned. For 90% of us, faith is determined by religion of one’s parents and to an extent the location of ones birth.
 
severntofall said:
Consider the contradictions between the creation stories. In the first creation story god created man and woman simultaneously, but only after he created all the creations in the land, air and sea. In the second account, god made man, then created the beast of the land and birds of the air. He then created woman. This is just one of the massive contradictions and lies found within the book.
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You have been misled by fundamentalists into thinking that Genesis must be read literally and thus that the “contradictions” amount to “lies.” This is not a reasonable way of reading this particular text.

Edwin
 
severntofall said:
I guess that’s why the gospel of Matthew contains at least two known lies. Herod’s slaughter of innocents flat out never happened (not mentioned by any historian nor in any of the other three gospels (and the nativity tale told by Luke flat out contradicts it)).
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No, it doesn’t. And the slaughter of the innocents is entirely compatible with what we know of Herod from other sources. Pious tradition has led us to think of this as a horrendous massacre involving thousands of victims, but Bethlehem was a small town and the event might not have been well known. That being said, I’m not at all convinced that Matthew is best read as a historical narrative. One prominent evangelical scholar (Robert Gundry) has suggested that the infancy story in Matthew is best read as analogous to rabbinic “midrash.” (It should be noted that he was expelled from the Evangelical Theological Society for this view.)
The holy zombies that rose from the dead after Jesus’ crucifixion amazingly receives no mention by any historian (dead rising from their tombs and living in Jerusalem no mention any where in history) nor by any of the three other gospels. It is utterly inconceivable that the three other gospel authors found the sky going dark and a curtain tearing worthy of mention but holy zombies rising from the grave and returning to normal life in the city not worth a mention.
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They may not have returned to normal life. They may have appeared to people briefly. However, this is another account that looks like “midrash” to me.
How much of this stuff needs to be a lie before the book is discredited? How many errors can a book contain before we realize it’s just nonsense? By what standard does anyone consider this book of any value?
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By the standard of a canonical, sacred text telling me about the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. I do not consider Matthew to be primarily a historical text, although it certainly contains considerable historical material.

Edwin
 
severntofall said:
Not only is the bible in its current forms (how many translation are there now?) filled with contradictions and errors, it varies significant from the earliest known manuscripts
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Not true. Most modern translations rely heavily on the earliest known manuscripts. You need to broaden out your Bible reading beyond just the KJV!
The catholic church used to argue vigorously that since the bible is so filled with errors it could not be trusted to guide mankind towards god’s will
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You’re confusing the argument of Richard Simon and perhaps a few other Catholic scholars with the general position of the Catholic Church.

Edwin
 
severntofall said:
Was it; to whom? Explain why such a tiny percentage of the world population, living is a tiny portion of the world realized something so evident? What is evident is that every culture in every part of the world has made up their own religions and gods and the Hebrews were differnt. Did you know that Yahweh before he was the god of the Hebrews was proably the Midean volcano god that lived on the now extinct volcano of Mt Sinai?
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I’m not saying that everyone believed in the one I believe who is the true God, the God of the Hebrews…

…It was common, dare I say, philosophy, to believe in God or a god or gods.
 
Many people often end up attending the denomination they were saved in. Often times this can move them eventually away from the faith since most so called christian religions today have strayed off the beaten path, creating doctrines of men.

Here is an explanation why there are so many different belief systems today.

Suppose you have one bible, such as the King James. With that one book, you could have possibly five different interpretations, thus creating five different religions.

Today, I believe there is roughly about 26 different translations of the bible. Now, if each of these have five different translations, it could possibly create 130 different belief systems or churches, each boasting theirs is the right way. They cannot all be right and they are not.

Over time, the enemy snuck in when the good man of the house had let his guard down and added a small drop of poison. He only added a few drops of poison so as to not change the taste dramatically, least his plan be discovered. For his intention is not to kill a few, but all mankind. And if he would have added enough poison, a few would have died, and his plan would have been revealed, thus saving the multitude.

So the enemy continued to add poison to the water and to this day continues, causing those who drink from the well to get sicker and sicker, even unto death.

So basically, the further men move from the truth of God’s Word, the sicker he becomes.

So what is the true Word, the uncorrupted Word?

The bible teaches us the Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus told the apostles that his followers will recognize his voice, would know and understand his Word.

Today, most of modern christianity has compromised the bible in one way, shape or form. We are not to compromise the Word of God. We are not to add or take away from the Word of God. We are to led of the Holy Spirit and we are to remember that greater is he who is in me, then he who is in the world.

I believe that if a man seeks God with all of his heart, mind and soul, loves God with all of his heart, mind and soul, he will know the truth and that truth will set you free from the ways of the world.

Regardless of all the many different and diverse translations in the world today, there is one that has and will always stand above the rest. It is the Authorized King James Bible. I believe it is the infallible Word of God. I believe if a man is true to himself and submits to God’s will, he will come to know which is the Word of God.

ONE of the most damaging lies of the devil and most successful is the belief that it is impossible for the God of all creation to get his Word into print and have it done perfectly. It is said that because of the imperfection of man, it is impossible to get a perfect translation. Yet, the bible tells us nothing is impossible for God.

Believe the Word of God. Seek God with the heart and not the mind. Seek him though his Son by way of faith.
 
heiscominginthe said:
Many people often end up attending the denomination they were saved in. Often times this can move them eventually away from the faith since most so called christian religions today have strayed off the beaten path, creating doctrines of men.

Here is an explanation why there are so many different belief systems today.

Suppose you have one bible, such as the King James. With that one book, you could have possibly five different interpretations, thus creating five different religions.

Today, I believe there is roughly about 26 different translations of the bible. Now, if each of these have five different translations, it could possibly create 130 different belief systems or churches, each boasting theirs is the right way. They cannot all be right and they are not.
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Yes, here at Catholic Answers we understand this. It’s called sola scriptura, a doctrine of man created about 500 years ago.
🤷
 
Yes, here at Catholic Answers we understand this. It’s called sola scriptura, a doctrine of man created about 500 years ago.
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I subscribe to the KJV.
 
heiscominginthe said:
I subscribe to the KJV.
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I subscribe to God’s revealed truth, which is contained within Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. For Sacred Scripture* alone * as one’s main rule of faith and authority was a doctrine subscribed to by Martin Luther and his followers and other reformers. I also submit myself to Christ’s authorative Church (Matthew 16:18-19; Matthew 18:18). Paul says it’s the “pillar of the truth” (1 Tim 3:16). Until the Reformation, all Christians relied on Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition (the body of teachings handed down from the Apostles through their successors, the bishops), and the authority of the Church. Even the Eastern Orthodox, which separated from the Catholic Church about 1,000 years ago, relies on both Scripture and Tradition.

Paul tells us to maintain his traditions, whether by word of mouth (Sacred Tradition) or by letter (Scripture).

EDIT: Please see the following articles provided by Catholic Answers for more info
Scripture and Tradition

What’s Your Authority?

See what the first Christian leaders, those who knew the Apostles and the Apostle’s disciples best, believed about Scripture and Tradition:

Apostolic Tradition
 
Until the Reformation, all Christians relied on Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition (the body of teachings handed down from the Apostles through their successors, the bishops), and the authority of the Church.
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Doctrine was given for proof and reproof. It came by way of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles to the body of Christ or church.

As for the tradition mentioned, I am assuming you are referring to the Lord’s Supper of communion?

As for baptism, I believe the first baptism is through the blood of the lamb which all believers must have to be united into the family of God. Romans 6 Without this baptism, a man will not be saved.
 
heiscominginthe said:
Doctrine was given for proof and reproof. It came by way of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles to the body of Christ or church.

As for the tradition mentioned, I am assuming you are referring to the Lord’s Supper of communion?

As for baptism, I believe the first baptism is through the blood of the lamb which all believers must have to be united into the family of God. Romans 6 Without this baptism, a man will not be saved.
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To your first two sentences: the Holy Spirit does guide the Church but He does not change doctrine. Truth is truth.

No. Tradition is more than the reality of the Sacraments. Please read the articles I provided ( I editted my post). 🙂 🙂
 
To your first two sentences: the Holy Spirit does guide the Church but He does not change doctrine. Truth is truth.
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No. Tradition is more than the reality of the Sacraments. Please read the articles I provided ( I editted my post).
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I tried to get to traditon, but the page would not appear, but the other pages you posted did. Not sure why. Thanks.

Now, the books that are not accepted by the KJ. Can you show me a scripture that Jesus quoted that is from any of these books?
 
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