Why is Scripture true?

[Spirithound]

liquidpele:

“Proving Inspiration” illustrates how the inspiration of Scripture can be proved.

…This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible.

I almost spit out my coke reading that…

Did you even try to understand the post? The Bible as a historical document says the Church is infallible.

 

[PennitentMan]

Thanks for the link and the quote….I’m still waiting to see the proof that the article claim to produce.

Basically, the Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.

Please prove that statement. And how do they define “ancient work” do they mean the Egyptian “book of the dead”? or boks describing greek Mythology? Certainly they are not comparing contemporary historians’ work.

As far as most scholars are concerned the bible is not verifiable as a historical document. It’s not even agreed upon by all scholars that Jesus actually existed. There are many discrepancies even between the gospels themselves, no proof outside of the gospels corroborated any evidence, even amongst contemporary historians that lived during these events.
This is the first erroneous assumption that your “proof” claims and actually uses thie false base to expand the claim.

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name.

No they haven’t. They have made an unfounded assumption and used that as the base for a statement and then try to pass it off as truth.

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book.

So, we still only have hearsay stories and “Because we tell you so” to really back up your claims.

 

[PennitentMan]

I almost spit out my coke reading that…

I know…I had to do a double take too…

 

[JDaniel]

What is “falsity” ?

That which is not “true”.

Sorry, just trying to re-boot my brain!

jd

 

[JDaniel]

And I suppose you would define “false” as “that which is not true”
Circular logic is fun, but not actually useful.

For me, occasionally it re-boots my brain - takes the pressure off from having to be so serious and thoughtful in answering many of the posts herein. So, you injured-soccer-playing-half-a-philosopher, allow me the simple pleasure.

jd

 

[Spirithound]

Please prove that statement. And how do they define “ancient work” do they mean the Egyptian “book of the dead”? or boks describing greek Mythology? Certainly they are not comparing contemporary historians’ work.

Did you actually read the article? It tells about the length of time between the earliest extant copies and when the originals where written. The Bible surpasses all others. Philosophers, poets, none can even compare.
Next, to decide whether the text of today matches the original text. There are over 24000 fragments, parts of books, full books, and full Bibles from 125 AD till the invention of the printing press, and within those there is a 99.5% agreement rate. Comparing with ancient philosophers and such, this is absolutely amazing.
Furthermore, the Early Church Fathers quoted the New Testament so extensively that even if we didn’t have any copies of the Bible itself, we could still reconstruct it from their writings.

 

[PennitentMan]

Did you actually read the article?

I did.

It tells about the length of time between the earliest extant copies and when the originals where written. The Bible surpasses all others. Philosophers, poets, none can even compare.

the length of time does not make something factual. That would mean that Gilgamesh’s epic would also be true.

Next, to decide whether the text of today matches the original text. There are over 24000 fragments, parts of books, full books, and full Bibles from 125 AD till the invention of the printing press, and within those there is a 99.5% agreement rate. Comparing with ancient philosophers and such, this is absolutely amazing.

When you place anything in the hands of people dedicating their lives to their beliefs, then it makes sense, but it doesn’t make it true.

Furthermore, the Early Church Fathers quoted the New Testament so extensively that even if we didn’t have any copies of the Bible itself, we could still reconstruct it from their writings.

. It still doesn’t make it true….and much less inspired.

The proof is not proof, it’s all assumptions

 

[Spirithound]

the length of time does not make something factual. That would mean that Gilgamesh’s epic would also be true.

You’re getting ahead of me here! Noting the length of time between initial writing and earliest extant copies, combined with the number of copies, adding in the quotes from the ECF’s is only to establish that the text we have now is the same as the text that was initially written.

Erich kind of glossed over the next step, actually assessing the historical accuracy of the Gospels, which is elaborated in the article linked above in the section entitled “The Bible as Historical Truth”.

 

[wasmit]

. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text[the bible] the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.

lol

 

[PennitentMan]

Spirithound:

You’re getting ahead of me here! Noting the length of time between initial writing and earliest extant copies, combined with the number of copies, adding in the quotes from the ECF’s is only to establish that the text we have now is the same as the text that was initially written.

Erich kind of glossed over the next step, actually assessing the historical accuracy of the Gospels, which is elaborated in the article linked above in the section entitled “The Bible as Historical Truth”.

Just because something is an accurate translation, doesn’t make it **historical **truth. That’s the assumption that the article made that’s incorrect.

In the same vine you can claim that the tale we read today of Hansel and Gretel is exactly the same as it was written by the Brothers Grim. Because it’s been translated and copied in its truest form, does that mean it actually happened?
Same goes for the epic of Gilgamesh…just because what we read today is an accurate translation, does that mean it actually happened? Nope
And Gilgamesh is even older than the bible. (Also incorporating many faceted of bible history and events, such as the flood, the tree of knowledge, Delilah, and many others.
The Gilgamesh epic even cast doubt on the bible as an authentic text, but that’s another thread.

Basically they say because the bible is an accurate translation from its original texts, and that makes it a true account of events. You can’t make that assumption. The original work could be fiction, or part fiction, entwined with facts. That has to be confirmed through other sources, none of which are cited in this text.

I had to chuckle at this part in your quoted article:

Note that this is not a circular argument. We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument! What we have is really a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is history. From that we conclude that an infallible Church was founded. And then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired.

They say that believing in the bible as truth because the bible says to, is circular. Sure.
But ( and they base this on a false assumption of its history)
The bible says that the church is infallible, so we can believe in the bible because the church says so…Sorry, but it’s still the classic circular argument.

This is just not going to make the cut as proof.

So, the OP asks Why is scripture true?
There is no proof that it is.

 

[Spirithound]

Just because something is an accurate translation, doesn’t make it **historical **truth. That’s the assumption that the article made that’s incorrect.

Again, that is not what the article is saying. Read the section titled “The Bible as Historical Truth”. That section does not talk about translations. That’s the previous section.

 

[PennitentMan]

Again, that is not what the article is saying. Read the section titled “The Bible as Historical Truth”. That section does not talk about translations. That’s the previous section.

You are confusing my point. They assume accurate translation = historic truth.

1st Paragraph in question. They speak about accurate translations.
2nd Paragraph in question. Then they use that basis to assume that accurate = historical fact (which is incorrect)
Then they use that incorrect assumption to claim that the church is infallible.

So they say the bible is true because the church says so. How do we know that the church is right? Because the bible says so

 

[Spirithound]

You are confusing my point. They assume accurate translation = historic truth.

1st Paragraph in question. They speak about accurate translations.
2nd Paragraph in question. Then they use that basis to assume that accurate = historical fact (which is incorrect)
Then they use that incorrect assumption to claim that the church is infallible.

They deal with the historicity of the Bible rather obliquely, but it’s there. Extra-Biblical writings are one source of confirmation, the Apostles’ deaths are another. Also consider that these things were written within living memory of Jesus.
The Article in Question:

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do.

 

[PennitentMan]

They deal with the historicity of the Bible rather obliquely, but it’s there. Extra-Biblical writings are one source of confirmation, the Apostles’ deaths are another. Also consider that these things were written within living memory of Jesus.

So the smoking gun that would solve the Faith vs. fact problem is dealt with “rather obliquely”? I wonder why. Maybe because the proof is non-existent and the reasoning is sketchy…here’s why:

Your Quote:

According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead.

People have died for hoaxes and what they believed in before, and I do believe that the disciples could have. The person is using speculation to base a conclusion on that is then passed as fact. Using the word “Certainly” shows that it’s an assumption and a deduction that is based on accounts that are in themselves unverified.(As per the previous point)

The speculation is that, just because the disciples died for what they believe, that makes it true. There are many religious cults that also die for what they believe to be true…

Also, as a sidenote, the first gospel written, Luke (Widely believed to be the basis of the other two, Matthew and Mark, which was copied from and elaborated on, together with the Missing Gospel “Q”) did not contain the resurrection account. Studies into the writing style, grammar and word use and other items, have shown that the whole resurrection account was inserted at a later date by a different author, possibly Eusebius
Interesting hu?

Don’t you see that the “evidence” being put forth here is pure speculation and deductive reasoning based on unconfirmed sources?

What extra-biblical sources are you referring to? Let’s look at a list of contemporary historians during the time of Christ:

Josephus; Philo-Judaeus; Seneca; Pliny the Elder; Suetonius; Juvenal; Martial; Persius; Plutarch; Justus of Tiberius; Apollonius; Pliny the Younger; Tacitus; Quintilian; Lucanus; Epictetus; Silius Italicus; Statius; Ptolemy; Hermogones; Valerius Maximus; Arrian; Petronius; Dion Pruseus; Paterculus; Appian; Theon of Smyrna; Phlegon; Pompon Mela; Quintius ; urtius; Lucian; Pausanias; Valerius Flaccus; Florus Lucius; Favorinus; Phaedrus; Damis; Aulus Gellius; Columella; Dio Chrysostom and Lysias; Appion of Alexandria.

Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.

My point is that there is enough doubt cast on the bible, and very few external sources even exist (let alone that they are all debunked) to base anything on the bible. That’s as much proof as exists today and no assumption will change that.
It boils down to blind faith. Do you believe that the bible is true and that the events happened and that jesus rose from the dead? You have to believe because there is no proof to back that up.

 

[Erich]

The bible says that the church is infallible, so we can believe in the bible because the church says so…Sorry, but it’s still the classic circular argument.

The Bible doesn’t say that the Church is infallible… what the Bible and other ancient works – the texts of which we know have been accurately transmitted down to the present day – actually say is that Jesus established a Church with (among other things) the authority to teach in His Name. The Church is infallible because of who it gets its teaching authority from, not from what books it eventually canonizes.

We know that the text of the Bible has been accurately transmitted down to the present day because, not only are the biblical manuscripts that we have older than those for classical authors, we have in sheer numbers far more manuscripts from which to work. Some are whole books of the Bible, others fragments of just a few words, but there are literally thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other languages. This means that we can be sure we have an authentic text, and we can work from it with confidence. In particular, we can take the text and conclude, purely historically, that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. It is because of Jesus’ Resurrection that we can take seriously his claims concerning the Church, **including its authority to teach in His name. **

The Hansel and Gretel analogy breaks down because, while no one disputes that the tale we read today is not exactly the same as it was written by the Brothers Grimm, there’s nothing in the tale “worth dying for”. By that I mean, there’s no one who is willing to put his/her life on the line claiming that, yes there was a house of candy and cake in the forest inhabited by a child-devouring witch, etc.

This is not a circular argument because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is not simply a restatement of its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable), and its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). Without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.

 

[Erich]

Also, as a sidenote, the first gospel written, Luke (Widely believed to be the basis of the other two, Matthew and Mark, which was copied from and elaborated on, together with the Missing Gospel “Q”) did not contain the resurrection account.

Actually, the first written gospel was Matthew, then Luke, then Mark, then John. See The Authors of the Gospels.

 

[Erich]

Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.

From The Historical Christ – Fact or Fiction?

Do any records exist to document the claim that Jesus Christ “intervened in the course of events” known as world history? Indeed they do.

Interestingly, the first type of records comes from what are known commonly as “hostile” sources—writers who mentioned Jesus in a negative light or derogatory fashion. Such penmen certainly were not predisposed to further the cause of Christ or otherwise to add credence to His existence. In fact, quite the opposite is true. They rejected His teachings and often reviled Him as well. Thus, one can appeal to them without the charge of built-in bias.
…
Even though much of the hostile testimony regarding the existence of Jesus originated from witnesses within the Roman Empire, such testimony is not the only kind of hostile historical evidence available. Anyone familiar with Jewish history will recognize immediately the Mishnah and the Talmud.
…
If a person as influential as Jesus had existed in the land of Palestine during the first century, surely the rabbis would have had something to say about him. Undoubtedly, a man who supposedly confronted the most astute religious leaders of His day—and won—would be named among the opinions of those who shared His rabbinical title. As Bruce declared: According to the earlier Rabbis whose opinions are recorded in these writings, Jesus of Nazareth was a transgressor in Israel, who practised magic, scorned the words of the wise, led the people astray, and said that he had not come to destroy the law but to add to it. He was hanged on Passover Eve for heresy and misleading the people. His disciples, of whom five are named, healed the sick in his name (1953, p. 102).First-century Judaism, in large part, refused to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of the God. Yet it did not refuse to accept Him as a historical man from a literal city known as Nazareth or to record for posterity crucial facts about His life and death.
…
As the earliest apologists of Christianity welcomed a full examination of the credentials of the message that they preached, so do we today. These credentials have been weighed in the balance and not found wanting. The simple fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ did exist and live among men.
It is impossible to say that no one has the right to be an agnostic. But no one has the right to be an agnostic till he has thus dealt with the question, and faced this fact with an open mind. After that, he may be an agnostic—if he can (Anderson, 1985, p. 12).

 

[Erich]

If you haven’t already, I also highly recommend reading By What Authority

 

[PennitentMan]

Actually, the first written gospel was Matthew, then Luke, then Mark, then John. See The Authors of the Gospels.

That’s according to Tradition…I’m talking about research and scholastic agreements:
The Gospel of Mark was composed first between 65-80 CE

From Wiki:"
The first canonical gospel written is thought by most scholars to be Mark (c 65-70), which was according to the majority used as a source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.[2] "

I prefer “most scholars” over “Tradition” any day.

 

[PennitentMan]

From The Historical Christ – Fact or Fiction?

Have a look at the dates that they were written and published. That does not constitute as “contemporary writings” and hence cannot be used in the argument.