Okay, your post was huge, so mine (in response) is slightly more huge. Many apologies. Please don't take offense to any of this, it was not intended to cause any.
For example; within the Old Testament the concepts of grace and unconditional love were a small voice against the teachings of judgement and revenge.. made concrete through teachings such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". The Jews had every right to stone the woman who had committed adultery (in the New Testament) under their law, yet Jesus taught us a different lesson; that grace and forgiveness is of a higher moral value than righteous punishment.
I completely disagree. The old Testament is brimming with stories of God's grace and forgiveness. Time and time again He calls out to His wayward people (how many prophets did He send to them?). He chastens those He loves.
The Old Testament is filled with the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of a home land,
Innocent? Do you know what those people did? Have you heard of the worship of Moleck? How people would burn their infants to this false god (not all that unlike today with abortion and all that)? These people were desperately wicked, not innocent.
yet Jesus taught us to resist not evil and to turn the other cheek.
Because God judges, not us. God instructed the Israelites to destroy those nations. He has not instructed us to slay people for their unrighteousness.
It is for these reasons that the Jews said that he was blasphemous and put him to death.
They said He was blasphemous because He claimed to be God (John 8:58-59).
Those that make the demand that the bible must be divinely inerrant, are no different from Muslims who claim that the Quran is the divine, inerrant word of God... or Mormons that make the claim that the Book of Mormon is the perfect revelation from the angel Moroni. These claims are made because their truth is not strong enough to stand on its own spiritual merits and must claim miraculous transmission in order to gain validation. Unconditional love and grace need no supernatural validation. The philosophical weight of these two concepts stand on their own.
Logical fallacy - strawman argument. Your perception of why we (actually the Bible itself) claim the Word of God is inerrant is incorrect. Truth is truth regardless of what people perceive it as, therefore it can stand on it's own without the Bible (which declares the truth). That being said, God has provided the Bible to us and we can rely on it for correct doctrine.
Those that demand the condition of Bible inerrancy have chosen to put their faith in a book. In doing so, they elevate it to Godhead, as apposed to allowing the book to lead them to the Spirit of God.
Incorrect. Our faith is in God who has revealed His Gospel to us through the Bible. If we cannot trust one part of the Bible, how can we trust any part of it? How do we know that the Gospel is true?
The New Testament teaches us that we are to be led by Spirit, not legal code. The Spirit of God is what illuminates the words within it, not it's literal wording.
No one claimed any different. It is the Spirit that reveals the truth of what the Bible says.
I am not saying that the Old Testament is without benefit, just as Paul says to Timothy that it is inspired by God-useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Do you think the writings of C.S. Lewis are NOT inspired by God? are they useful for teaching?
Non sequitor. It does not follow that because a man writes about his experiences with God that it should equal scripture. First of all, I do not find all of C.S. Lewis works to be useful. Some I flat out disagree with. That being said, the New Testament was written primarily by people who either walked with Jesus or were touched specifically by Him. Not to mention the need for the Bible to spread the Gospel (and doctrine) in the early Church.
But to believe that the Bible is flawless is to almost believe that without it, we would have no way of knowing God through his Spirit.
Again, non sequitor. Your premise is flawed. No one that I know who believes in the inerrancy of the (original) manuscripts believes that it is only through the Bible that we can know Him.
Just for the record, I believe there are transcribe errors and translation errors in our version of the Bible. But I believe the original manuscripts were inspired by God and perfectly correct. Neither translation errors nor transcribe errors cause that much difficulty with the harmony in the Bible.
.. it's frustrating to know that our feelings on the legitimacy of the bible is all opinion, no matter how much we believe it is fact and no matter how much logic we seem to have to back it up. Well, it's opinion until we're with God and he tells us what's really behind it all
