On Inerrancy

[ElfLord]

Nah, what he is saying is that they DON'T exist. I guess the "orthodox" God couldn't preserve them or something.

WOW! We are going to have to count how many Jots and Tittles fell from the law then!

[David Bokovoy]

All of what you say is irrelevant to the question. All one needs to do is look at a synopsis to see that Matthew, Mark and Luke use exactly the same words on all sorts of occasions. Whatever is the original source for this, they are all clearly literarily interdependent. The fact that they do not quote whatever that source was verbatim indicates they did not believe that original source was inerrant. If they believed it was inerrant, they wouldn't have changed it. But the fact that they change it in all sorts of ways--sometimes changing the meaning--indicate that did not believe it inerrant. None of your arguments here engage that fact.

There's considerable evidence to support this view and negate Rob's claim that even if Mark is a source for the other synoptic writers that Matthew and Luke never alter the earlier account. One of the classic illustrations of this trend includes Mark

[volgadon]

Vance,

You wrote (emphasis yours):

No. What I said is factually correct; your revision is not. Consider the thread on the problem of squaring Joseph Smith's teaching that baptism and the laying on of hands must both precede the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost with the report in Acts 10:44-48 that Cornelius and his household received the gift of the holy Ghost before they were baptized. Several Mormons in that thread were quite prepared to accept the idea that Acts was copied incorrectly or even that Luke himself was wrong. They agreed that Acts 10:44-48 says what I claimed, but argued that either the text was not copied correctly or Luke blew it. Thus, in favoring these explanations, they were conceding that I was interpreting the text of Acts 10 correctly -- but then simply rejected Acts 10.

By the way, they had only one reason for favoring these views: the assumption that Joseph Smith could not be wrong.

Or, both are correct. The usage of "gift of the Holy Ghost" in Acts is not the same usage as Joseph Smith's.

[Vance]

No. What I said is factually correct; your revision is not. Consider the thread on the problem of squaring Joseph Smith's teaching that baptism and the laying on of hands must both precede the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost with the report in Acts 10:44-48 that Cornelius and his household received the gift of the holy Ghost before they were baptized.

This was explained to you. Your failure to understand doesn't constitute a doctrinal discrepancy.

Several Mormons in that thread were quite prepared to accept the idea that Acts was copied incorrectly or even that Luke himself was wrong.

To what end? To show that YOUR misrepresentation of the text was irrelevant to us.

They agreed that Acts 10:44-48 says what I claimed,

But didn't mean what you said it meant.

but argued AS A POSSIBILITY that either the text was not copied correctly or Luke blew it.

There fixed it for you.

Thus, in favoring these explanations, they were conceding that I was interpreting the text of Acts 10 correctly

Only in your own mind. They were simply VERIFYING that you were indeed WRONG in what it meant.

-- but then simply rejected Rob Bowman's MISREPRESENTATION of Acts 10.

There, fixed it for you.

By the way, they had only one reason for favoring these views: the assumption that Joseph Smith could not be wrong.

You mean, other than Rob Bowman misrepresenting the mean of it, of course.

[Vance]

Or, both are correct. The usage of "gift of the Holy Ghost" in Acts is not the same usage as Joseph Smith's.

That was exactly the problem. Rob was INSISTING that the phrase "gift of the Holy Ghost" in Acts 10 meant EXACTLY the same usage as Joseph Smith, (thus creating the strawman). And then showing, rather easily I might add, that the phrase "gift of the Holy Ghost" in Acts 10 could NOT be the same usage as Joseph Smith.

[Hick Preacher]

Hick Preacher, even if I were persuaded by your reasoning, what good would the doctrine of inerrancy do, and why doesn't the Bible itself promulgate the idea?

You know LifeOnaPlate, I wish I was better formally educated -- from a school of theology on this matter. I did complete graduate school 20+ years ago, and I am not unintelligent. But I am caught between a rock and a hard place because if I were formally educated in reformation theory I would write in the venacular of a Protestant theologian-- and that would do most here no good. So maybe what and how I say it is pretty good for a MADB discussion. It frightens me to think that this age could be closing soon- and I am not better prepared to discuss this idea with those who post here. But ultimately what The Lord expects of all of us it to make ourselves of avail- and act as we are called upon to serve and rely on Him in our efforts. So I will try.

First, I do not believe in the rigid notion of Biblical Inerrancy like certain very conservative fundamentalists do. I do view Biblical themes of theology and human salvation to be correct and accurate as seen in modern English translations.

IMO, the Bible should not be used all by itself by a practicing Christian-- (in my view). I do not think there is an "itself" concerning the Bible. I do think that the Bible contains books that are God's logos however.

As I explained above, books in the library called 'The Bible' work together to put the pieces of the puzzle together. To think that the Bible books would talk about a collection and inerrancy is like confusing a library connection with the individual books. The books together reveal a mystery about the human condition, nature of God, a plan of salvation, the advent of Christ. Very few Bible books even mention the existence of the other books found in the collection. The action of the book that we have coming together is a wonder in itself. There is not any one single huge handbook with all things about God in it that spontaneously appeared--to think that there should or is a fable- a legend.

The doctrine of inerrancy is derived from parallel ideas expressed by Jesus and His Apostles about God's Word as represented in the written records of Hebrew Scriptures- the Law and the Prophets. These ideas were transfered into Books of the now New Testament when the (ECF) Apologists dealt with Gnostic Chrisianity in the second century (when guides for a New Testament collection were considered). The idea of an inerrant cannon in modern times developed in congregational Christianity to affirm the consistency, reliability and unity of God's logos to man- as an analog associated with unity of believers in Christ and unity of the Christian Church. Inerrancy is like the glue holding together the collection of Books( separate Bible books) that affirm and demonstrate the consistency of the testimony of the Apostles of Christ, and the workings of the Spirit in the salvation-history of the Saints.

-Hick

[Hick Preacher]

The problem is... Christ undoes this very statement when he quotes Psalms 82:6

John 10

33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;

So Either Mark is broken or John and Psalms is broken. You need to take your pick Hick Preacher. Are they both Innerrant?

You have also just undermined Robs use of verse 35 to support innerancy.

ElfLord,

As you know there are gods, gods, and gods and then there is The God.

IMO together these books work together as a team-- they are together as a group inerrant.

Kind of like the Greek Spartan warriors. One by one a Spartan was a pretty good fighter. But a team of Spartans coordinated were practically unbeatable.

As a whole Spartan warriors had a quality greater than the sum of the separate fighters if scattered. That is why the Bible books were grouped in a canon. Likewise, Spartans were spaced in their fighting formation in a tightly compacted formation. If fighters who had a different kind of fighting style, physical size, language, or other characteristics were added to the ranks- the team effectiveness would be diluted. The same with canonized books. Gnostic books if included in the canon would interrupt the team effort.

If we were missing a Bible book or two or a few--still the library would have the same quality of inerrancy.

Thanks,

-Hick

[ELF1024]

ElfLord,

As you know there are gods, gods, and gods and then there is The God.

IMO together these books work together as a team-- they are inerrant.

Kind of like the Greek Spartans. One by one a Spartan was a pretty good fighter. But a team of Spartans coordinated were practically unbeatable.

As a whole they had a quality greater than the sum of the separate fighter.

If we were missing a Bible book or two or a few--still the library would have the same quality of inerrancy.

Thanks,

-Hick

I think you just made an excellent case for the use of the Book of Mormon and why God would have it created. By your logic, the more Spartans the stronger the inerrancy.

[ElfLord]

ElfLord,

As you know there are gods, gods, and gods and then there is The God.

IMO together these books work together as a team-- they are inerrant.

Kind of like the Greek Spartans. One by one a Spartan was a pretty good fighter. But a team of Spartans coordinated were practically unbeatable.

As a whole Spartan warriors had a quality greater than the sum of the separate fighters if scattered. That is why the Bible books were grouped in a canon.

If we were missing a Bible book or two or a few--still the library would have the same quality of inerrancy.

Thanks,

-Hick

So then "The God" is made up of a bunch of little gods?

PS. I think what you are discribing is...

Article VI.

We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.

If this is true then if there are parts missing then Innerancy cannot be affirmed?! Because then the Whole wouldn't be Whole.

And here is an intresting one...

Article XVI.

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church's faith throughout its history.

We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.

[Hick Preacher]

I think you just made an excellent case for the use of the Book of Mormon and why God would have it created. By your logic, the more Spartans the stronger the inerrancy.

The Book of Mormon is a kind of canon in it self.

It has different qualities than the collection of books and the individual books found in the Bible however. I have commented on the vital importance some of those qualities in a previous post.

[ElfLord]

Heres another intresting one...

Article XVII.

We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.

We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.

How exactly is this "witness" given?

[Hick Preacher]

So then "The God" is made up of a bunch of little gods?

PS. I think what you are discribing is...

If this is true then if there are parts missing then Innerancy cannot be affirmed.

And here is an intresting one...

Jehovah is 'The God' of the Law and the Prophets ( a kind of inerrant canon ).

Acts 24:

14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:

If certain parts were missing then inerrancy of what now exists could not be affirmed. For many things there is redundancy within the collection.

In order to add to the collection, certain historical connections of a new book to the existing ones would have to be affirmed. At this point in time this would be difficult to affirm.

[Hick Preacher]

Heres another intresting one...

How exactly is this "witness" given?

Should be obvious-- the Spirit bears witness to the reader that what is in the scriptures is true. Afterall, no one can know that Jesus is the Christ without the Spirit telling them so.

[ElfLord]

Should be obvious-- the Spirit bears witness to the reader that what is in the scriptures is true. Afterall, no one can know that Jesus is the Christ without the Spirit telling them so.

Doesn't really answer the question.

What is the mode by which this "witness" communicates?

a) a voice

b) heart-burn

c) both

d) non-of the above

e) a boot to the head.

[Rob Bowman]

maklelan,

You wrote:

Are you in a position to defend your implication that Christ may have asserted it in a text that is no longer extant, or that he asserted it but it was never recorded?

I never implied any such thing. I defend the claim that Christ taught scriptural inerrancy based on extant texts reporting what Jesus said, not on hypothetical statements not recorded in extant texts.

You wrote:

Inerrancy is a thoroughly modern ideology. It existed nowhere in the ancient world.

You are repeating propaganda. Christians throughout church history have taught that Scripture was without error:

Irenaeus (late second century): "We must believe God, who has given us the right understanding, since the Holy Scriptures are perfect, because they are spoken by the Word of God and the Spirit of God" (Adv. Haer. 2.47).

Augustine (fourth/fifth centuries): "Only to those books which are called canonical have I learned to give honor so that I believe most firmly that no author in these books made any error in writing" (Ep. 82.1).

Thomas Aquinas (thirteenth century): "It is heretical to say that any falsehood whatsoever is contained either in the Gospels or in any canonical Scripture" (Comm. on Job. 13, lect. 1).

Just to mention a few rather notable examples.

You wrote:

Matthew 5:17-18 and John 10:35 are discussing the texts' authority. Authority is not inerrancy, as I've stated. This is clearly evidenced in the Ketiv/Qere readings in MT. The Masoretes recognized the authority of the text. Not one jot or tittle could be violated. They also recognized that portions of the text were in error, so they provided accurate (as far as they concluded) readings in the margins. They respected the text's authority, exactly as Jesus stated, but they also respected the fact that it had errors. Inerrancy is nowhere to be found in the ancient world.

You are continuing to assume a question-begging understanding of inerrancy to preclude erroneous readings in the manuscripts. All evangelicals agree that the manuscripts have erroneous readings.

You wrote:

Additionally, I would venture to guess that you don't believe Jesus' statement in Matt 5:17-18. He states that not one jot or tittle of the law or the prophets will pass away until heaven and earth pass away. Jesus is not there to make the law of Moses go away, he's there to see that it is obeyed. He states that anyone who breaks one of the least of the commandments therein will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. The church abolished virtually the entire law, and heaven and earth have not passed away. It appears the scripture is "undone," as it says in John 10. Luke, a Gentile, had a different take from Matthew, a Jew, on the role of the law of Moses in the gospel. He rearranges Matthew's statement: "But it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for a single stroke of a letter in the law to be cut out" (Luke 16:17). It's thus difficult for the law of Moses to become null and void, but not impossible. In fact, in the verse previous he states that the law was in effect "until John came." Matthew, writing after the Jerusalem council, asserts that the law of Moses would never be unnecessary, siding with the Judaizers in that controversy. Luke, siding with Paul, asserts that the law of Moses had been null and void since John the Baptist. Two different sides to the debate, and certainly of absolutely no aid to the notion of inerrancy.

You are mistaken about whether I believe Jesus' statement in Matthew 5:17-18. I most certainly do believe it. The church did not abolish the law; it recognized that Jesus had fulfilled the Mosaic Law as a covenant so that it was now superseded by the new covenant. The Mosaic Law continues to teach truth, just as much as it ever did; not one statement in the OT becomes false. Rather, the regulations of the Mosaic covenant become outmoded by the coming of Christ, whose sacrificial death and resurrection inaugurated the new covenant predicted by OT prophets and foreshadowed in the Mosaic sacrificial system. I grant that the issues here are theologically complex, but no NT writer asserts that something in the OT is false. Inerrancy means that the Bible never teaches falsehood; it does not mean that every stipulation in the Bible applies to everyone in every circumstance for all time.

The fact is that I believe Matthew 5:17-18 and you clearly do not. You not only reject the jot and tittle of the Old Testament, you reject the broad landscape and dominant worldview of the OT. That is, you maintain that the Exodus and Conquest never happened, that the general narrative of the OT is unhistorical, that the monotheistic perspective that dominates the OT was a late imposition by Deuteronomists that suppressed the most ancient Israelite religious beliefs, and so forth. Your confidence in the OT is almost as weak as Marcion's. This makes debating "inerrancy" somewhat beside the point, except that denial of inerrancy is the foot in the door of radical skepticism regarding the reliability of the Bible. From the presence of editorial "seams" and the like in OT narrative or a handful of theologically curious textual variants (e.g., at Deut. 32:8-9), you proceed to justify sweeping rejection of the general outlook and dominant theological content of the OT. I don't think I'm overstating things here, but correct me if you think I am.

[Hick Preacher]

Doesn't really answer the question.

What is the mode by which this "witness" communicates?

a) a voice

b) heart-burn

c) both

d) non-of the above

e) a boot to the head.

OH...

A whole bunch of ways truth can come by the Holy Ghost. Such as angels appear and teach you. You have a vision and gain knowledge from it. You have a dream and gain knowledge and truth form it. All of which is consistent with the Bible.

An Epiphany

[Vance]

NOT---the work of the Spirit

You a wake from bed alone first thing in the morning to find lipstick message on the mirror-- that says "get the XXXX out of my house--" you think to yourself OK bxxxh! and you leave your wife of 20 years never to return. Then a month later you feel how much better off you are without her.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

You walk passed the customer service desk at Albertson's supermarket in Evanston WY, and you hear a voice from above saying "buy two hundred lottery tickets and surely you will win'-- and at the same time you feel this Euphoria as you imagine a life of wealth in the Bahamas Islands.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Someone tells you that for the Bible to be God's word it must be inerrant. And you think, yeah, that makes sense.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Someone tells you that the Bible is the only source for truth, even though this "truth" isn't in the Bible. And you think, yeah, and all the doctrines I believe are in there too.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Some one organizes a church that has doctrine that is more logically solid and scripturally based than your own. And you find out this person practiced something that was practiced anciently (and by some of your fellow believers, although hidden from you) but which in your current culture is frowned upon. And you think, VOILA, I don't like the message so I will attack the messenger.

[Hick Preacher]

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Someone tells you that for the Bible to be God's word it must be inerrant. And you think, yeah, that makes sense.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Someone tells you that the Bible is the only source for truth, even though this "truth" isn't in the Bible. And you think, yeah, and all the doctrines I believe are in there too.

NOT--the work of the Spirit

Some one organizes a church that has doctrine that is more logically solid and scripturally based than your own. And you find out this person practiced something that was practiced anciently (and by some of your fellow believers, although hidden from you) but which in your current culture is frowned upon. And you think, VOILA, I don't like the message so I will attack the messenger.

What if someone tells you that the Bible has a message from God called

[Hick Preacher]

data error

[Deborah]

I can't believe that even a lay person who has done any degree of reading on the issue would still believe in Biblical inerrancy, nor anyone who has actually studied the books themselves would believe that nothing more could be revealed. One truly has to have his head in the sand, or to take the theme of another thread, have faith that is not only blind but deaf and dumb.

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

All of what you say is irrelevant to the question. All one needs to do is look at a synopsis to see that Matthew, Mark and Luke use exactly the same words on all sorts of occasions. Whatever is the original source for this, they are all clearly literarily interdependent. The fact that they do not quote whatever that source was verbatim indicates they did not believe that original source was inerrant. If they believed it was inerrant, they wouldn't have changed it. But the fact that they change it in all sorts of ways--sometimes changing the meaning--indicate that did not believe it inerrant. None of your arguments here engage that fact.

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Your argument presupposes an understanding of inerrancy other than the one you are claiming to refute. In short, you are knocking down a straw man.

[Rob Bowman]

Mola,

You wrote:

So they are currently not inerrant? Is that what you are saying?

Anyway, to avoid getting confused, the main point is that we do not have the original autographs. So, for me, all of this talk about inerrancy is pointless.

The autographs per se do not, so far as we know, exist. Therefore, the technically precise thing to say is that they were inerrant. But that does not make the issue pointless. I could say that we do not have the equivalent of the "autographic" words of the current "living prophet" because as soon as he speaks any words, those words become things of the past. Then all we have are recordings, transcripts, or memories of what he said. Occasionally, there is some confusion as to the exact words of the living prophet. But this doesn't mean that you cannot as a Mormon affirm that you agree with what the living prophet said, or "says" (somewhat loosely speaking). Likewise for the Bible.

[Rob Bowman]

ElfLord,

You wrote:

You apparently have not been watching the same EV vs Mormon debates/dialogs on the boards that I have.

Okay, give me an example of an evangelical saying something in the Bible was copied incorrectly merely on the grounds that it disagreed with his theology.

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

Let's not get distracted, shall we?

No indeed.

So are you telling me that texts are supposedly inerrant only after they have been canonized? (Why would the process of canonization render a text inerrant?)

Or are they supposedly inerrant because they are revealed from God?

No, I said no such thing. The issue I was addressing on this point was the propriety of adding to a canonical book, not the inerrancy of a portion of what became a canonical book.

Jeremiah's first text was a revelation from God (36.1-2). Was it inerrant?

From what I understand, yes.

Jeremiah's second text added to the first text (36.32). Why would an inerrant first edition require changing?

The text of the original scroll wasn't changed. New material was added to it. This is no different in principle than Paul dictating a couple of chapters of Philippians, taking a coffee break, then coming back and dictating the rest.

[Hick Preacher]

I can't believe that even a lay person who has done any degree of reading on the issue would still believe in Biblical inerrancy, nor anyone who has actually studied the books themselves would believe that nothing more could be revealed. One truly has to have his head in the sand, or to take the theme of another thread, have faith that is not only blind but deaf and dumb.

I passed through several progressive stages of personal spiritual and intellectual development related to what the Bible represents.

At one point about 25 years ago the higher critics had me convinced that the Bible was full of errors-contradictions and it was not trustworthy. At that stage I believed that the Bible was invalidated as a trustworthy source of sacred information especially related to the ways that Evangelicalism