What makes you think the bible is the word of God?

[tigers08]

Do you feel angry at being duped?

You just had this eureka moment?

What happend?

Well I don’t feel angry exactly cause there’s no one to blame. My parents just believed what their parents did, and they thought they were doing the right thing raising me Catholic. But I did promise myself that if I had kids I would expose them to all types of religions and non-religions, and let them decide for themselves what they believed.

The eureka moment: I had always struggled with believing the contradictions of the bible. I learned about the big bang and evolution, yet the bible says they’re wrong. It was like Winston in 1984 saying O’Brien was holding up 5 fingers when he only saw 4. How can you truly believe that? It had never dawned on me that the bible could be wrong, I had been raised knowing the bible came from God. Even children’s songs use that as their basis: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so”. No one asks why the bible is trustworthy. But then one day it hit me, the bible doesn’t have to be true. The light bulb went off, and it seemed to explain everything. I thought about that a lot, for months, and the more I thought about it the more it seemed right.

 

[inthecloud]

"And about it being literal, if any of it’s not literal, who decides which parts are and which parts aren’t? Who’s to say the resurrection wasn’t metaphorical? Saying the whole thing is not literal just gives people a way to manipulate the text to spread their own agenda

."
Good point, but the CChurch unlike others churches has created a rigid set of rules to determinate what is literal and what is not literal. The eyewitness account by historical sources for example. That makes the cafeteria belief less probable in bible exegesis.

 

[Nita]

I really wasn’t asking for conversion stories, and sorry but I didn’t find his answer meaningful, I just didn’t want to be mean. Nothing personal to anyone but someone else having an “experience” means nothing to me. How can I know whether it’s true or not, let alone whether it was divine intervention. But it is interesting that faced with a similar experience as mine you ended up going back to Christianity. For me, when I realized (imo) that Christianity was wrong I had this great eureka feeling. It was like all the holes in the religion finally melted away when I could see the whole thing was wrong (again imo). The only negative feeling I had was at being (again imo) duped my whole life.

The reason for saying your question is equivalent to asking for conversion stories is that in the final analysis there is only one reason for believing the Bible is the word of God (NT specifically) - and that reason is because one believes that Jesus Christ is God.

I don’t think the word “infallible” is used for Scripture, but rather “inerrant in matters of faith and morals”. Will do some searching on that and if I’m wrong will post later. It really is important to learn how to read and interpret Scripture. You mentioned the Big Bang. Again, my reaction was the opposite of yours. Because of my understanding of Genesis, my thought was “Science finally got it right!” (that is, proposing something that does not contradict Scripture).

Nita

 

[tigers08]

The reason for saying your question is equivalent to asking for conversion stories is that in the final analysis there is only one reason for believing the Bible is the word of God (NT specifically) - and that reason is because one believes that Jesus Christ is God.

I don’t think the word “infallible” is used for Scripture, but rather “inerrant in matters of faith and morals”. Will do some searching on that and if I’m wrong will post later. It really is important to learn how to read and interpret Scripture. You mentioned the Big Bang. Again, my reaction was the opposite of yours. Because of my understanding of Genesis, my thought was “Science finally got it right!” (that is, proposing something that does not contradict Scripture).

Nita

Mmm, I guess you’re right that the reason one believes the bible is why they “converted” or confirmed their belief in Christianity. But I would think the reason one believes that Jesus is God is that they believe the bible was inspired by God, not the other way around. Cause you can believe Jesus is the son of God without believing the bible, but you can’t believe the bible without believing Jesus is the son of God. And sorry if I misused the world infallible, but y’all know what I mean. And how in the world does the Big Bang not contradict the bible? The Big Bang means all the matter in the universe was there from the instant it started, not different pieces of matter being added for 6 days. (Even if you don’t think the days were literal, its still all at once vs. over time).

 

[tigers08]

."
Good point, but the CChurch unlike others churches has created a rigid set of rules to determinate what is literal and what is not literal. The eyewitness account by historical sources for example. That makes the cafeteria belief less probable in bible exegesis.

That helps a little, but you still have to trust that the Church’s rules are right. And as far as being rigid, interpretation of the bible changes a ton over time. Seems like every major scientific breakthrough is followed by the Church changing its interpretation about 100 years later. Like the Earth being the center of the universe. This was the Church’s interpretation of Genesis being literal, but after Copernicus and others, the Church decided that was wrong and changed their doctrine. Doesn’t sound too rigid to me. I don’t really consider the eyewitness account to be that great of a source. Even if there are other documents claiming 100’s or 1000’s of people saw Jesus resurrected, their still only written by a few guys. So you’re trusting the authors, not the thousands they claim to have seen. Plus, who knows if Jesus actually died on the cross, or if they saw someone else who looked like him. There’s so many things that could have happened, the most likely being it’s all made up, that there’s no way I can trust it. Personally, one bronze chariot out of the middle of the Red Sea carbon dated to the time of the Exodus would prove more than 10,000 documents claiming people saw Jesus after he “rose”.

 

[TAS2000]

The book is said to be infallible, so there should be no qualifications like “well, it was true for what they saw”. If God inspired it, and it’s considered infallible, it should just be the truth, period. …But there are some parts that, if true, would be very easy to show happened (the flood), yet there is no evidence for.

you are confusing infallible with a complete in depth understanding in every nuance of every detail. You ever hear the fable of the four blind men describing an elephant? all were right, but all were vastly different because each of them touched a different part of the elephant. Infallible doesn’t mean it contains and clearly explains in words everyone can understand every detail of how everything came to be, what it was for and why. Thats why God gave us brains. Also, there is plenty of evidence for a catastrophic flood occurance if you look for it. Almost every culture on earth has legends about a flood event. And there is archeological evidence as well, especially if you consider that FACT (scientific - look it up) that carbon dating
is a very poor inaccurate method of dating things that is based on assumptions that may not be correct and give a widely varient result when run multiple times.
Sounds like you’ve been sold a bill of goods by someone who convinced you that since the bible doesn’t explain away all responsibilty for independant thought that you shouldn’t trust any of it.

 

[ChrisWRIT]

You can prove the accuracy of an ancient text by comparing it to archaeological and historical records.

And as you note, archaeological and historical records to support and verify many biblical writings. Not all biblical questions & claims have already been proven or shown to be credible of course, but but many of them have, as you noted supporting evidence for one part tends to lend credence to the rest. I suppose the question would be “what is an acceptable preponderance of that evidence, before accepting the Bible as true?”

In fact, things like these tend to discredit the accusation of “circular reasoning” that is often employed to discredit bot the Church & the Bible.

Ultimately, circular reasoning cannot be completely avoided in arguing for the ultimate criterion of any system. This is what Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas meant by saying that first principles are indemonstrable.

Nonetheless, the Church’s interpretation of the Bible or its inerrancy is not closed off from history or from scientific evidence.

The eureka moment: I had always struggled with believing the contradictions of the bible.

There are no contraditions. When there appears to be one (or more), it is/they are typically due to my (our?) misunderstanding.

I learned about the big bang and evolution, yet the bible says they’re wrong.

Not exactly. The Bible doesn’t explicitly condemn or support either, which is why we are free to “pick & choose” what we believe in this area.

No one asks why the bible is trustworthy. But then one day it hit me, the bible doesn’t have to be true. The light bulb went off, and it seemed to explain everything. I thought about that a lot, for months, and the more I thought about it the more it seemed right.

LOL. I thought so too, many years ago.

I left the church when I was your age too. Not for all of the same reasons, but I also “realized” that neither the bible nor the church “had to be true.”

It was the beginning of a new, simple freedom, where I didn’t have to worry about how I acted; where I didn’t have to “accept” what I thought were contradictions.

“Everyone was just complicating everything with all this stuff!” I thought.

By simply considering the Bible/Church to be “wrong”, I could just disregard it all, live simply & not worry about all the things that they said that I didn’t believe or understand.

Some years later, for some reason, I revisited some of the “problems” I had with the Bible itself. After looking at all the evidence lending credibility to the Bible, I came to return to Christianity, although I still had trouble accepting what the Catholic Church taught (like contraception, authority, infallibility, etc.)

Not too long ago, I ended up looking at those “problems” I had with Catholicism in the same way as with the Bible, & I came to see that Catholic teaching didn’t contradict the Bible, and like the Bible, was supported by outside evidence, like the aforementioned archaeological & historic evidence, so I “came home” to the Catholic Church.

You are, of course, free to take whatever course you desire, but I would encourage you to actually list the specific items you have problems with, and look to see what evidence (for or against) is out there concerning it.

Chris

 

[ricmat]

Tigers08:

Thinking the Bible is the word of God is a part of a much larger story.

I’ll lead you through my own path (not to debate it, but just as an illustration).

1. God exists. It’s obvious to me in many ways, but if someone needs some help, you can read these books, which I’ve read over the last 2-3 years.

a) The Science Before Science - gives the Scientific / Philosophical perspective.

b) A Meaningful World - gives the Artistic / Philosophical perspective.

c) 50 Questions on the Natural Law - gives a legalistic law sort of perspective.

1. Anyone powerful enough to create the universe doesn’t make mistakes, or do something by accident. Therefore, we (humans) have a purpose. Creating humans who did not have a purpose would have been an accident…
2. For various reasons - the only rational explanation for an infinite God creating us is out of love. God created us so he could love us, and we could love him back. An infinite God obviously wouldn’t NEED to create us, for ANY reason. Love is the only answer.
3. To be able for us to choose to love God, or not (a choice is required for love to be actual love) - God gave us free will to choose not to love.
4. Since God wants us to be with him, he’s going to give us some help in knowing about God, and how to love God, and in exercising our free will correctly. We have the gifts of reason, conscience, and natural law, but we can only partly understand and love an infinite God through these limited means.
5. It is entirely reasonable to me then, that God chose a particular people (the Jews) to start a God-directed process (but still subject to our free-will) of knowing God, and knowing how to love God.
6. The record of God’s interaction with man - and the directives required to be “good”, in terms we can actually understand were written down by the Jews as the Old Testament. This process continues on with the Catholic Church, which provides the moral clarity necessary to handle new situations - and provides tools to help us reach God. Which God would want us to do, of course.
7. The coming of Jesus, redemption, etc. (and the New Testament) is a much longer story which involves the actual solution to our dilemma that to be with God, we must be like God, but aren’t. And this also involves the issue of justice for our sins.

But in summary, I see the Bible as a tool, one of many, that God gave us to help us know him and love him - and therefore fulfill the purpose for which we were created, and for which the universe was created.

Some other tools are the Catholic Church itself, the sacraments by which we receive super-help (grace), prayer, and good works.

I know this post is a bit off the original topic…sorry.

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

… do you have a reason to believe the bible was inspired by God?

There is plenty of historical evidence to believe that the Old Testament was written before the time of Christ, and the New Testament was written after.

But the Old Testament contains powerful stories about Christ. How could this be if Christ wasn’t born yet? It would have to be divinely inspired. This is known as prophecy, and prophecy is God’s signature.

 

[Nita]

Mmm, I guess you’re right that the reason one believes the bible is why they “converted” or confirmed their belief in Christianity. But I would think the reason one believes that Jesus is God is that they believe the bible was inspired by God, not the other way around. Cause you can believe Jesus is the son of God without believing the bible, but you can’t believe the bible without believing Jesus is the son of God.

Like you, I grew up believing in Jesus because it was what I was taught. The Bible didn’t enter, one way or the other, into my losing my faith. For me it all centered around the Person of Jesus. It was only after my conversion that the Bible became a very important part of my faith and prayer life.

And how in the world does the Big Bang not contradict the bible? The Big Bang means all the matter in the universe was there from the instant it started, not different pieces of matter being added for 6 days. (Even if you don’t think the days were literal, its still all at once vs. over time).

First off, my knowledge of the Big Bang is very general. If it doesn’t allow for the creation of matter and energy, then I would have to retract my earlier statement. But my understanding is that it does.

First three chapters of Genesis are absolutely fascinating.
Regarding your statement of all the matter being there from the first instant - no problem:
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(in other words everything - and this was before He even introduced the phenomenon of “time”)

I won’t go thru the whole thing. But it is interesting to note that the specific word “create” is used for only three categories -
vs 1 - the stuff of the universe
vs 21 - the first living creatures (animal life)
vs 27 - the first humans

It was not the “stuff” of the creatures and humans that was created for that came from existing matter (Gen 1:20 and 2:7). What was newly created in each instance were “souls” - two very unique types, thus requiring two separate creations.

Sorry for rambling, but I do love Genesis.

Nita

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I would agree with just about everything except that Christians claim the bible was inspired by God. The book is said to be infallible, so there should be no qualifications like “well, it was true for what they saw”. If God inspired it, and it’s considered infallible, it should just be the truth, period.

However - there is no intrinsic reason why it must be inerrant, merely because it is inspired. AFAICS, the CC does teach that it is inspired, therefore inerrant: even so, there is in principle no reason why inspiration must lead to inerrancy. And AFAICS, no justification for believing it is inerrant, Church or no Church - but that is just MO.​

You can prove the accuracy of an ancient text by comparing it to archaeological and historical records. You’re right, you can’t know anything for certain, but with consensus in lots of different evidence, we can be pretty sure. For instance, we know a lot of things in the bible actually occurred, because we have found evidence for them outside the text. But there are some parts that, if true, would be very easy to show happened (the flood), yet there is no evidence for. And scientists provide evidence for their findings, which can be repeated by anyone to test if it is correct. They don’t write a thesis and call it infallible.

The Bible is, under one aspect, a wholly human set of texts - therefore, it can & should be & is studied just as any other set of texts is. And just as no one can read Virgil intelligently by supposing him to be writing now, neither are the very varied Biblical texts read intelligently if we insist on reading them as though they were addressed primarily to us. We can apply them to our setting - but they were not written in or to our setting. Which is why it is disgraceful to read them like messages in fortune cookies; they are no such thing.​

And about it being literal, if any of it’s not literal, who decides which parts are and which parts aren’t? Who’s to say the resurrection wasn’t metaphorical? Saying the whole thing is not literal just gives people a way to manipulate the text to spread their own agenda.

Only if they ignore the historical setting of the texts. Parables are not historical texts; creation legends are not gospels; prophecies are not letters. If people can’t be bothered to do some work in order to understand what kind of texts the Bible is made of, they can blame only themselves.​

The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible site makes a hash of the Bible precisely because it reads it in this unintelligent way. Any literature would seem idiotic if read like that No one ignorant of Virgil’s Latin would comment on his Aeneid; & the Biblical texts deserve no less respect than the Aeneid.

Once the literal meaning of the texts is understood, it can be used theologically - but the meaning must, AFAP, be found first.

 

[tigers08]

you are confusing infallible with a complete in depth understanding in every nuance of every detail. You ever hear the fable of the four blind men describing an elephant? all were right, but all were vastly different because each of them touched a different part of the elephant. Infallible doesn’t mean it contains and clearly explains in words everyone can understand every detail of how everything came to be, what it was for and why. Thats why God gave us brains. Also, there is plenty of evidence for a catastrophic flood occurance if you look for it. Almost every culture on earth has legends about a flood event. And there is archeological evidence as well, especially if you consider that FACT (scientific - look it up) that carbon dating
is a very poor inaccurate method of dating things that is based on assumptions that may not be correct and give a widely varient result when run multiple times.
Sounds like you’ve been sold a bill of goods by someone who convinced you that since the bible doesn’t explain away all responsibilty for independant thought that you shouldn’t trust any of it.

The fable is about 4 blind men, not one omnipresent and omniscient God. I completely agree that if we are to take the bible as a book of stories, and just stories, then of course there will be some inaccuracies, or parts that are from different points of view. But this book was supposedly INSPIRED by God. And there is absolutely no evidence for a world wide flood. Plus, where would all the water come from and where would it go? Or would God just forget about that whole conservation of mass thing. No one claimed that carbon dating was inerrant, but it is pretty accurate for the time scales it measures. And remember, it just takes one thing in the book wrong to make the bible not the word of God. I’ve lost count.

 

[tigers08]

And as you note, archaeological and historical records to support and verify many biblical writings. Not all biblical questions & claims have already been proven or shown to be credible of course, but but many of them have, as you noted supporting evidence for one part tends to lend credence to the rest. I suppose the question would be “what is an acceptable preponderance of that evidence, before accepting the Bible as true?”

In fact, things like these tend to discredit the accusation of “circular reasoning” that is often employed to discredit bot the Church & the Bible.

Ultimately, circular reasoning cannot be completely avoided in arguing for the ultimate criterion of any system. This is what Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas meant by saying that first principles are indemonstrable.

Nonetheless, the Church’s interpretation of the Bible or its inerrancy is not closed off from history or from scientific evidence.

There are no contraditions. When there appears to be one (or more), it is/they are typically due to my (our?) misunderstanding.

Not exactly. The Bible doesn’t explicitly condemn or support either, which is why we are free to “pick & choose” what we believe in this area.

LOL. I thought so too, many years ago.

I left the church when I was your age too. Not for all of the same reasons, but I also “realized” that neither the bible nor the church “had to be true.”

It was the beginning of a new, simple freedom, where I didn’t have to worry about how I acted; where I didn’t have to “accept” what I thought were contradictions.

“Everyone was just complicating everything with all this stuff!” I thought.

By simply considering the Bible/Church to be “wrong”, I could just disregard it all, live simply & not worry about all the things that they said that I didn’t believe or understand.

Some years later, for some reason, I revisited some of the “problems” I had with the Bible itself. After looking at all the evidence lending credibility to the Bible, I came to return to Christianity, although I still had trouble accepting what the Catholic Church taught (like contraception, authority, infallibility, etc.)

Not too long ago, I ended up looking at those “problems” I had with Catholicism in the same way as with the Bible, & I came to see that Catholic teaching didn’t contradict the Bible, and like the Bible, was supported by outside evidence, like the aforementioned archaeological & historic evidence, so I “came home” to the Catholic Church.

You are, of course, free to take whatever course you desire, but I would encourage you to actually list the specific items you have problems with, and look to see what evidence (for or against) is out there concerning it.

Chris

A lot of the Koran is true, too. Doesn’t make that inspired either. And for me to accept that a book is infallible, it would take quite a bit of evidence for it, and obviously none against it. Neither of those is true.
And yes, there are contradictions. My favorite is how 3 out of 4 gospels disagree on Jesus’ last words. Of course y’all are gonna say something like “different people heard different things, but he said all of them” or something like that. But my point is that if God inspired it, even if he does give each person leeway in how they write it, they should at least be able to quote God’s last words on Earth right. And yes, if the creation story in Genesis is taken literally, it contradicts both the big band and evolution.
I didn’t leave the church so I could have fun w/o worrying about the consequences, I left it because when viewed objectively there’s no reason to believe it, and many reasons not to. And I’ll make a list some other time, I’m too tired right now.

 

[tigers08]

Tigers08:

Thinking the Bible is the word of God is a part of a much larger story.

I’ll lead you through my own path (not to debate it, but just as an illustration).

1. God exists. It’s obvious to me in many ways, but if someone needs some help, you can read these books, which I’ve read over the last 2-3 years.

a) The Science Before Science - gives the Scientific / Philosophical perspective.

b) A Meaningful World - gives the Artistic / Philosophical perspective.

c) 50 Questions on the Natural Law - gives a legalistic law sort of perspective.

1. Anyone powerful enough to create the universe doesn’t make mistakes, or do something by accident. Therefore, we (humans) have a purpose. Creating humans who did not have a purpose would have been an accident…
2. For various reasons - the only rational explanation for an infinite God creating us is out of love. God created us so he could love us, and we could love him back. An infinite God obviously wouldn’t NEED to create us, for ANY reason. Love is the only answer.
3. To be able for us to choose to love God, or not (a choice is required for love to be actual love) - God gave us free will to choose not to love.
4. Since God wants us to be with him, he’s going to give us some help in knowing about God, and how to love God, and in exercising our free will correctly. We have the gifts of reason, conscience, and natural law, but we can only partly understand and love an infinite God through these limited means.
5. It is entirely reasonable to me then, that God chose a particular people (the Jews) to start a God-directed process (but still subject to our free-will) of knowing God, and knowing how to love God.
6. The record of God’s interaction with man - and the directives required to be “good”, in terms we can actually understand were written down by the Jews as the Old Testament. This process continues on with the Catholic Church, which provides the moral clarity necessary to handle new situations - and provides tools to help us reach God. Which God would want us to do, of course.
7. The coming of Jesus, redemption, etc. (and the New Testament) is a much longer story which involves the actual solution to our dilemma that to be with God, we must be like God, but aren’t. And this also involves the issue of justice for our sins.

But in summary, I see the Bible as a tool, one of many, that God gave us to help us know him and love him - and therefore fulfill the purpose for which we were created, and for which the universe was created.

Some other tools are the Catholic Church itself, the sacraments by which we receive super-help (grace), prayer, and good works.

I know this post is a bit off the original topic…sorry.

1. I don’t know how you define God, but I define it as whatever created the universe, conscious or unconscious, so no matter what he/it exists.
2. No one really knows how a universe is created so it could be easy, but for the sake of discussion I’ll agree with a conscious and powerful God.
3. Can you really say why God would create us? I think it’s a little naive to put such human emotions on God.
4. I don’t believe we have free will. That’s a whole other thread though but basically I don’t think theres anything random in the universe, so theres only one possible course time can take.
   5-6) Why would God choose one people? He’s omnipresent, right? Why wouldn’t he just appear to us all individually? Cause trusting the bible isn’t trusting God, it’s trusting the people who claim God wrote the bible.
   7-8) since i disagreed above I can’t really point out new reasons.

 

[tigers08]

There is plenty of historical evidence to believe that the Old Testament was written before the time of Christ, and the New Testament was written after.

But the Old Testament contains powerful stories about Christ. How could this be if Christ wasn’t born yet? It would have to be divinely inspired. This is known as prophecy, and prophecy is God’s signature.

I was waiting for this one. I’ve looked up most of these supposed prophecies, and none seem more evident of actual knowledge of the future than anything Nostradamus said. Most people say Isaiah 7:14 is prophecy of Jesus, but if you actually read the chapter, its asking God for an immediate sign about an upcoming war. Plus Jesus was never called Immanuel. And he ate stuff besides butter and honey (lol, yes I realize this was a metaphor). And other books have supposed prophecies, too. Its really not that hard to do, all you have to do is be ambiguous and make a lot of them, eventually one will appear to come true.

 

[tigers08]

Like you, I grew up believing in Jesus because it was what I was taught. The Bible didn’t enter, one way or the other, into my losing my faith. For me it all centered around the Person of Jesus. It was only after my conversion that the Bible became a very important part of my faith and prayer life.

First off, my knowledge of the Big Bang is very general. If it doesn’t allow for the creation of matter and energy, then I would have to retract my earlier statement. But my understanding is that it does.

First three chapters of Genesis are absolutely fascinating.
Regarding your statement of all the matter being there from the first instant - no problem:
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(in other words everything - and this was before He even introduced the phenomenon of “time”)

I won’t go thru the whole thing. But it is interesting to note that the specific word “create” is used for only three categories -
vs 1 - the stuff of the universe
vs 21 - the first living creatures (animal life)
vs 27 - the first humans

It was not the “stuff” of the creatures and humans that was created for that came from existing matter (Gen 1:20 and 2:7). What was newly created in each instance were “souls” - two very unique types, thus requiring two separate creations.

Sorry for rambling, but I do love Genesis.

Nita

I’m pretty sure the big bang says all the matter in the universe was contained in a tiny space, and expanded from there. I couldn’t find a source right away and honestly my attention span isn’t that long, but I may post one later. But I do know that the conservation of mass and energy are facts in physics world. But Genesis is obviously the early Jews’ attempt at a creation story. It was probably pretty good for the time, but now it just seems extremely naive. Why would God inspire the Jews to write a story in a way they could have written it without him? Not much of a revelation if it doesn’t teach them anything. What would be impressive is Genesis talking about the big bang, the expansion of the universe, condensing of planets, etc. That would lend the bible some credibility.

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

I was waiting for this one. I’ve looked up most of these supposed prophecies, and none seem more evident of actual knowledge of the future than anything Nostradamus said. Most people say Isaiah 7:14 is prophecy of Jesus, but if you actually read the chapter, its asking God for an immediate sign about an upcoming war. Plus Jesus was never called Immanuel. And he ate stuff besides butter and honey (lol, yes I realize this was a metaphor). And other books have supposed prophecies, too. Its really not that hard to do, all you have to do is be ambiguous and make a lot of them, eventually one will appear to come true.

Hi tigers08,

Whilst remaining on the subject of prophecy, please tell, do you think it was a co-incidence that Jesus was cruicified on the day before Passover?

Do you think it is ambiguous to think that the blood red moon described in Joel 2:31 is the lunar eclipse that took place on Friday 3rd April, 33AD?

 

[agangbern]

When someone told me that it is the word of God, I wondered: How true is it that it is the word of God? This moved me to make a prayerful study of the book and of the life of some persons who accepted it to be so. How did this persons lived and died? The deep study on the bible would ultimately bring one’s attention to the main character of the whole bible, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then one would realize that Jesus Christ is not only a myth but a historical truth. A man who performed wonders no other man could do. A man who alone ascended in the way He did. The man in whom the prophecies in the bible were fulfilled. That somehow convinced me that those who told me were right after all.

 

[Newbie2]

I would agree with just about everything except that Christians claim the bible was inspired by God. The book is said to be infallible, so there should be no qualifications like “well, it was true for what they saw”. If God inspired it, and it’s considered infallible, it should just be the truth, period. You can prove the accuracy of an ancient text by comparing it to archaeological and historical records. You’re right, you can’t know anything for certain, but with consensus in lots of different evidence, we can be pretty sure. For instance, we know a lot of things in the bible actually occurred, because we have found evidence for them outside the text. But there are some parts that, if true, would be very easy to show happened (the flood), yet there is no evidence for. And scientists provide evidence for their findings, which can be repeated by anyone to test if it is correct. They don’t write a thesis and call it infallible.

And about it being literal, if any of it’s not literal, who decides which parts are and which parts aren’t? Who’s to say the resurrection wasn’t metaphorical?

It seems to me that you’re trying to equate literal and infallible.

Let’s take the historical books in the OT for example; they don’t all agree on the the numbers of people, some locations of events don’t square with each other, etc.

The point of infallibility is not the historical reliability, it’s the message of the text.

For example, does it really matter if God took 6 days or 6 bazillion years to create the earth? The message of the creation story is that he created it. That message is infallible.

In the NT, the Gospel accounts don’t square with each other in a number of areas. Geographical details, were 4 or 5 thousand fed, etc. Does it matter? No, the messge is infallible.

Did Balaam’s *** really talk to him? (I always laugh when I hear this question ) Doesn’t matter. The message is infallible.

Saying the whole thing is not literal just gives people a way to manipulate the text to spread their own agenda

Maybe so. But that’s going to happen regardless of whether or not we claim scripture as entirely literal or not…AND, claiming that it is all literal opens it up to scientific and historical criticism, to which many sections of scripture fail to measure up.

The question is whether or not one chooses to read scripture with a literary (not necessarliy literal) mindset or a spiritual one, isn’t it?

 

[ChrisWRIT]

A lot of the Koran is true, too. Doesn’t make that inspired either. And for me to accept that a book is infallible, it would take quite a bit of evidence for it, and obviously none against it. Neither of those is true.

I understand. Everyone obviously demands a different amount of evidence to accept anything, be it the Bible, or the Koran, or evolution, or gravity or whatever. Why does your belief or unbelief determine truth? Didn’t “everyone” refuse to believe that the earth was round at one time too?

And yes, there are contradictions. My favorite is how 3 out of 4 gospels disagree on Jesus’ last words. Of course y’all are gonna say something like “different people heard different things, but he said all of them” or something like that. But my point is that if God inspired it, even if he does give each person leeway in how they write it, they should at least be able to quote God’s last words on Earth right.

None of the 4 gospels quote Jesus last words before His ascension into heaven. They obviously quote Jesus after his resurrection & before his ascension, but only the book of Acts actually states the actual last thing Jesus said before he ascended to heaven. (Acts 1:7-9)

And yes, if the creation story in Genesis is taken literally, it contradicts both the big band and evolution.

Which creation story are you referring to, the first (Gen. 1) or the second (Gen. 2)? The two stories obviously contradict one another in chronological order, much less anything else.

I agree that the creation stories can’t be taken literally & still be true. As others have noted, one cannot take the entire bible in a literalistic sense and NOT have contradictions and obvious errors. All the more reason NOT to try & force a literal meaning on every single word.

The fact is, the bible doesn’t state the exact way that God created everything, & that no one really knows HOW He did it, which is why (as noted earlier) Catholics are individually free to hold to whatever view they want, whether it is a “6-day creation”, “Intelligent design”, or “evolution”.

You say you don’t believe the Bible is true because it you object to “qualifications like “well, it was true for what they saw”.”

No one saw the “big band” either, nor has evolution ever been replicated in a laboratory, nonetheless, you seem to believe it is the truth. Claiming that the “big band” and evolution are true would also require that someone see it, or else it is simply being claimed as “true for what the proponents saw” as well.

I don’t know how the universe was created, nor do I care much, since it cannot be proven regardless of the method. I’m skeptical of both literal creationism & ID, but I’m also skeptical of TENS (the “Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection.”) Again, none were witnessed, nor can they be duplicated. (If you think it evolution can, fine. Take a sunfish & a squirrel to a lab, & evolve a horse for me. That’ll prove it is correct.)

I didn’t leave the church so I could have fun w/o worrying about the consequences, I left it because when viewed objectively there’s no reason to believe it, and many reasons not to. And I’ll make a list some other time, I’m too tired right now.

I didn’t leave because I wanted “fun w/o worrying about the consequences” either, but because I believed the same thing you do, that “when viewed objectively there’s no reason to believe it.” I realized much later that my leaving “freed” me to pursue whatever I wanted without worry about any moral issues that the church or bible demanded.

You asked why people here think the bible is the word of God, and many have given you many answers - succession of Jesus teaching authority in the Church, enough historic & archaeological evidence, spiritual convictions, & various combinations.

I have since learned that my belief is not what defines “objective”, & returned after I looked at the evidence supporting both the Bible & the authority of the Church. The perfect consistency between those two sources as well as with the wide range of outside evidence convinces me that both the Bible & the Church are true & correct, even if I haven’t/don’t have perfect proof for every single item of doctrine.



Chris