The Bible

The Chronicles passage describes his cleansing of the cities in Judah (see vs 5). In chapter 15 he proceeds to cleanse Benjamin and portions of Ephraim of its idolatrous high places as well (15:8). However, the chapter ends like the passage in I Kings. Verse 17 indicates that he did not cleanse the remainder of the land. Perhaps he even permitted some to reappear in Judah by the end of his reign. (They went up and down quite regularly in those days.)
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]That's it? No one is going to ponder the existence of "copyist" errors in the bible or answer why God would allow translations of His one and only book to contain errors?

I don't find it to be that important of an issue. I have no need to find a way to wiggle out of Gods teachings.

Cory
 
OY!

Fine.

You know, half of reason for these discussion is so that I can learn something. So that we can ALL learn something.

Pardon me if I personally think it's an important issue. If you don't, that's fine, don't participate.

I can't read your mind and know what's important to you and what isn't.
 
First of all, a person would be completly nieve to think that there would be no translational errors when a book is copied over. I mean, we can't even move forward and copy history without details being changed in our own language, much less the conversion of a book comprised of other books written as far back as a few thousand years ago. So to deny there are translational mistakes in some wording would be foolish. But the cocrete parts of it have not changed. The message is still clear. The old testament lead up to the coming of the Messiah through the lineage of David. The new testament entails how salvation is obtained through faith, not works.

Cheryl posted a hefty response to your list, and that was good enough for me.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Why are "copyist" errors in the Bible? Why would God allow translations of His one and only book to contain errors?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was so that some skeptics who didn't want to believe would have a factual reason not to, and I use the term factual loosly here.

cory
 
As naive as it is, there ARE people that truly, honestly believe that.

Just because this board is inhabited by Christians doesn't mean you all believe the same thing. Without asking questions like this I would never know.
 
hmm...interesting idea Thad.

I think, even if the bible was "perfect" people would still find a way to reject the message. ie...not enough evidence outside the bible.

Looks take a look at biblical prophecy. Jesus comes and setup his Millenial reign. Everybody alive will know he is God and that all these little ideosyncracies they look for to justify their rejection will wash away. But, at the end of the 1,000 years, a great many will be decieved again...despite living with Jesus, and will rise up against him.

I don't think it is the idea of the bible being erroneous that has them rejecting the message...its the message itself they can't accept, that they are indeed not the Gods they would like themselves to be. (Just random thoughts)
 
It's interesting isn't it? That men could be surrounded by God and witness to His powerful miracles/plagues and STILL question His power (eg the Israelites during the Exodus.)

And here we have Christ's return and reign of 1000 years and people STILL will reject Him.

I'm very interested in why you think that is.
 
It would be beneficial to examine the Doctrine of Inspiration, which inerrancy is a consequence of. (I'll be borrowing from one of my older posts on the forum.)

God's character is proof of inspiration. An infallible God would not produce a fallible Scripture.

Inspiration in a broad sense simply means the recording of truth. There are six characteristics that define inspiration.

1. Inspiration is inexplicable. It is the operation of the Holy Spirit, but we do not know exactly how that power of the Spirit operates.

2. Inspiration, in this restricted sense, is limited to the authors of the Scripture. Other books are not inspired in the same sense.

3. Inspiration is essentially guidance by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit supervised the selection of materials to be used and the words to be employed in writing.

4. The Holy Spirit preserved the authors from all error and from all omission.

5. Inspiration extends to the words, not merely thoughts and concepts.

6. Inspiration is affirmed only of the autographs of the Scriptures, not of any of the versions, whether ancient or modern, nor of any Hebrew or Greek manuscripts in existence.

Methods of inspiration include:

1. Authors acting as copyists

2. Authors acting as historians

3. Authors acting as thinkers and composers

4. Authors acting as secretaries

This technique is expressed in 1 Cor. 2: 1-14. How God did it is explained in 2 Pet. 1:20,21.

Bible writers testify that they were conscious of this compelling by the Holy Spirit.

1. Old Testament writers:

a. The phrases: "Thus saith the Lord," "The Lord spake," are used over 2000 times in the OT. Ex. 5-14 "The Lord said,"

b. Isaiah declares 20 times that his writings are "The Word of the Lord."

c. Jeremiah says 100 times that "The word of the Lord came unto me" (Jer. 1:1,2).

2. The New Testament writers:

a. Lk. 1:1-4

b. Jude 1:1-4

c. 1 Cor. 2:13

3. New Testament writers recognized the writings of others as Scripture.

a. 2 Pet. 3:15-16

b. 1 Tim 5:18

c. Josh. 1:8

d. Neh 8:1, 3, 14; 9: 1-3; 13:1

e. Dan 9: 1,2

f. Zech. 7:12

g. Acts 1:16

4. Christ recognized authority of Old Testament Scriptures.

a. Mt. 5:17,18

b. Jn. 10:34, 35

c. Mt. 22:43 (see also: Lk. 24:24, 44, Jn. 16:12-15; 14:25)

5. God prepared the writers.

Gal. 1:15-16: Paul separated before his birth

Jer. 1: 4, 5: Jeremiah separated before birth

6. God inspired the writings, not the writers: (2 Tim. 3:16)

The Bible's continuity: The Bible is one volume, with one theme from Genesis to Revelation, prophecy to fulfillment, type to antitype, form anticipation to presentation of Christ, yet:

1. It is a collection of 66 books

2. It had 40 different authors

3. It was distributed over 60 generations and 1600 years.

Ultimately, the inspiration and preservation of the Bible are two separate matters. The whole problem of variant reading has been greatly exaggerated. The Old Testament does not have many variants at all. The vast majority of variants is of little doctrinal importance and never destroys any vital doctrine of the Christian faith. By comparing manuscripts, it is possible to determine from these what the original text was. And from all evidence available we conclude that God has preserved His Word, and though He has not kept any one of the manuscript copies, He has kept enough to compare and thereby determine the content of the original.

The critic often states that certain passages contradict one another or that certain passages contradict facts of science, history, etc. A simple refutation is in the form of a challenge.

The objector must:

a. Show that the passage was in the original document

b. Show the translation he is using is absolutely correct.

c. Show that his interpretation of the passage is the only possible one and that it is the exact idea the writer wanted to express.

d. Show that his present state of scientific knowledge is final.

e. When all the above is done, the objector must show that the two statements cannot possibly be reconciled.

Please allow me to quote Farrar, "The widest learning and the acutest ingenuity of skepticism has never pointed to one complete and demonstrable error of fact of doctrine in the Old Testament or New Testament.
 
I really want to go into this a bit more, it truly is absurd and mindboggling when you look at it in detail.

So let's set the scene...God sends Moses and Aaron to talk to Pharaoh to release His people. Pharaoh says no and we're off!

God then rains ten plagues upon Egypt, but spares the Israelites. He spared them from the flies (Ex. 8:22), spared their cattle (Ex. 9:6), spared them from hail (Ex. 9:24), allowed them to have light in unpenetrable darkness (Ex. 10:23), and saved their firstborn when all other firstborn of the Egyptians were killed. Without a doubt, this was a pretty impressive display of power. Not only that, God put in a personal appearance when Pharaoh finally relented and let the Israelites go. Ex. 13:21, God appeared to them in "a pillar of cloud" by day and in "a pillar of fire" by night on a constant basis while they were led out of Egypt.

Come on now, a pillar of freakin' fire! That's impressive people. But all of this, the plagues, the signs, none of this was enough for the Israelites. Pharaoh eventually came to his senses and charges after the Israelites. Now personlly, I would have laughed at Pharaoh and waited to see what God would rain down on them next, but no, not the Israelites. They start whining and are on the verge of a rebellion. God performs yet another miracle, parting the Red Sea and letting His people through. Imagine this, the sea parting, the sea bed drying enough to allow passage, seeing sea creatures swim past the walls of water. And then collapsing in on the charging Egyptians annihilating every single one of them. Adios Egyptians.

Now that's enough miracles to last someone a lifetime! Right? RIGHT?! Heck no, that was enough to last just three days. Three days later the Israelites were whining again because there wasn't anything to drink. Come on now, you're following GOD here after all, yet these guys are crying about being led out into the wilderness to die. Hello, McFly? Didn't you see ANY of those miracles back there? So God performs yet another miracle in Ex. 23-24 and sweetens the bitter waters of Marah.

So God fulfills yet another requirement for His chosen people. I'd think I was pretty special having an omnipotent God cowtow to my every whim. Ah, but these little whiners weren't done. They had a rumbly in their tumbly and had absolutely no food. OH NO! What to do? They're all going to starve! Uh, hey guys, look at the flaming pillar over there...no no, can't be interrupted, we're going to starve here! I suppose this proves God's omnipotent patience, I would have flipped out on these people long ago, but he serves up a heaping helping of another miracle and provides not just quail, but manna as well...we have to hit all the food groups you know.

So up till now, God has flattened Egyptians with plagues and drowned them in a parted sea. The Israelites were thirsty and he gave them water, they were hungry and he fed them. All their needs have been met, I'd count myself lucky to be an Israelite right about now, moreso than an Egyptian at any rate. So here we are in Rephidim where the Israelites are camped and surprise surprise, there's nothing to drink. Now...most logical people, even those of us that ride the short bus to school, would know what to do here. Go up to the pillar of smoke and ask God for some water, hey, it's not like He hasn't done it before, right? But no, the whiners start crying about being led into the wilderness to die of thirst (now where have I heard that before?). Moses had no idea what to do and runs to God saying the people are getting ready to stone him. God tells Moses to chill out and whack a rock and voila, water! I can't believe these people were actually questioning whether God was with them or not (Ex. 17:7)!

Even the dimmest of the dim should have realized by now that God has everything under control. But the Israelites? Nah, not them. All this murmuring and complaining and bitching finally got to God and He snapped, raining fire down on their camp, consuming those around the outskirts of camp. Only when the people starting praying and crying to Moses did the fire abate (Num 11:1-3).

That would have been enough to make me zip it and stop my bellyaching...but the Israelites? You guessed it. They started whining about not having anything to eat. Uh, hey, what about all that mana? Mana, sure we have mana, but man does not live by mana alone! I remember when I was back in Egypt and how abundant fish and meat were! Damn, I'd love a steak right about now! God was pissed (Num. 11:10) and thought, hmmm, they want meat? I'll give them meat! And boy howdy he did! So much quail they stacked up three feet high. It took everyone all that day, all night, and all the next day just to gather all the quail. Even the laziest among them gathered 580 dry gallons of quail (Num. 11:32). So once again God comes through for His people.

Moses scouts told of fortified cities inhabited by men of great stature ahead. No problem the people said, we have God on our side! Right? Uh no, that's not what they said. They started bitching AGAIN. So much so that they were about to elect a leader to lead them BACK TO EGYPT! Joshua and Caleb were the only two to stick up for God, but the people only threatened to stone them even though the "glory of Yahweh appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel" (Num. 6-11).

Now God was seriously ticked this time, threatening to rain down pestilence on his chosen people, sparing Moses of course. Thankfully Moses, with his omniscience greater than God's talks him out of it, pointing out a few flaws in God's logic (Num 14:13-19). Moses wins the debate and God spares the whiners. Well kinda. He doesn't kill them outright, but forces them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until they all die out anyway, except for Joshua, Caleb and the children.

And here is where I will end it...not because it's the end of the story. No no, there's the whole earth opening up and swallowing those who opposed Moses (Num. 16:31-33), more bitching about not having water (Ex. 15:23-25; 17:4-7), and yet more complaining about God leading them into the wilderness to die, for which God sent serpents to bite them in their ass (Num 21:4- 9) and killed off quite a few of them. Why God made Moses construct a bronze serpent for them to look upon and be healed is beyond my comprehension, but hey, He did. Ugh, and there's more, but you can look that up on your own.

After all this, it still wasn't enough for them. Why? Personally, I don't believe any of this ever happened. How could it??? How could anyone with a smattering of sense in their head live with God on a daily basis and still doubt Him and His power? Let's not also forget to mention the lack of historical documents of the time corroborating this huge group of people travelling through the wilderness or the lack of archaeological evidence to back it up.

Honestly, if you believe this story took place, please, PLEASE explain to me how these people could be this stupid!
 
For a second there, I couldn't tell who's side you were on till you came to the punchline
smile.gif
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Honestly, if you believe this story took place, please, PLEASE explain to me how these people could be this stupid!

Isaiah: 8,9

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

In short, God is Sovereign and how He chooses to deal with His chosen is completely up to him. Whether we understand it or not is irrelevant.
 
It is human nature to want instant gratification. If you read what was going on when they did rebel and turn to idols, God was basically making them wait on him to give them patience I suspect. Anyways the Israelites got tired of waiting and did there own thing. Its the same with people today. Why else do you think there is a golden calf.....er Wal-mart on every corner. People are wanton, greedy, impatient. We have not the ability to truely "wait on God" as he wants us to, thats why they turned from him despite all the miracles.

In Christ,
Gabriel
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Watcher @ Sep. 08 2004,7:52)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Honestly, if you believe this story took place, please, PLEASE explain to me how these people could be this stupid!

Isaiah: 8,9

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

In short, God is Sovereign and how He chooses to deal with His chosen is completely up to him. Whether we understand it or not is irrelevant.
In other words, shut up puny human, you will never ever dream of understanding God!

Granted, with our limited intellect we are not able to fully understand omniscience and all its subtleties.

However, we can draw inferences based on our observations.

Or are you saying to never, ever question the will of God? If that were the case then there would never have been a Reforation movement would there? Every Christian would be a Catholic. So that means that at some level it IS ok to question your beliefs, right?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Arkanjel @ Sep. 08 2004,8:22)]It is human nature to want instant gratification. If you read what was going on when they did rebel and turn to idols, God was basically making them wait on him to give them patience I suspect. Anyways the Israelites got tired of waiting and did there own thing. Its the same with people today. Why else do you think there is a golden calf.....er Wal-mart on every corner. People are wanton, greedy, impatient. We have not the ability to truely "wait on God" as he wants us to, thats why they turned from him despite all the miracles.

In Christ,
Gabriel
But this is not quite the same thing is there?

You can't draw a correlation between them and us today.

They were there in the presence of God, the Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, the Alpha and the Omega. AND THEY STILL DID NOT BELIEVE. They questioned his abilities, they questioned his powers, they turned to find other gods. All while in the presence of God.

Question human nature all you want, but come on! Only TWO people could see the power of God? How is that possible? I may be one of the most ardent skeptics here, but if I were in the presence of all these plagues and miracles, I'd need several lobotomies to act the way these guys did.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (MontrezAnthony @ Sep. 08 2004,8:02)]I once heard a saying an indivual person is smart, but people in mass are stupid
Yuup. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Arkanjel @ Sep. 08 2004,8:22)]It is human nature to want instant gratification. If you read what was going on when they did rebel and turn to idols, God was basically making them wait on him to give them patience I suspect. Anyways the Israelites got tired of waiting and did there own thing. Its the same with people today. Why else do you think there is a golden calf.....er Wal-mart on every corner. People are wanton, greedy, impatient. We have not the ability to truely "wait on God" as he wants us to, thats why they turned from him despite all the miracles.

In Christ,
Gabriel
That seems a bit of a stretch though. If these miracles did actually take place, there is no way these Isrealites--God's people--would turn on him in such a short amount of time. Unless they were all mentally retarded and had a highly evocative pagan leader that is. But I do not believe that was the case.
 
If I saw the sea part I would be a believer on the spot. I wouldn't question a thing. I makes no sense that if u saw god and saw all of his actions with your own eyes u wouldn't question any of his actions.

I don't believe in god because I want to see proof, and I have to many questions to be answered. They saw it all and still they questioned him. Thats y the story doesn't seem true.


[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Yuup. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Yeah they might think Harry Potter is Satanic.
tounge.gif
 
Sorry Mechboy, but I feel a little inclined to defend the Christians.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I don't believe in god because I want to see proof,

Um, atheists on this site are deeper than the half-assed atheists I know personally, so I won't pretend to know your reasons. Proof of God is not necessarily seeing is believeing (although it may be for you). We can't see atoms, but we have mathmatical formulae and calculations that fit. The same (in a way) goes for God.

There are certain things that, no matter how much I try, I cannot explain. Ghosts for example. I believe in ghosts (something sensible from me at last
biggrin.gif
) because there are unnatural phenomenon that seem to provide evidence for their precense. (Think three men and a baby, look for pictures and I'm sure you'll find at least one reference to the 'Ghost Boy' scene). It sounds like a weak excuse, but in many ways, there are things that Christians legitamately believe prove God.

"Et tu Jim??"
 
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