[kosta50]

The few examples or biblical inaccuracies were hardly grammatical or linguistic. Biblical inerrancy is spiritual, not factual. It really matters little in the big scheme of things if a Jewish king was 22 or 42 when he became the king -- it's the spiritual message of the chapter in which the king is mentioned that matters.

As Agrarian says in #3955, such differences are "minor and change neither the historical accounts nor the spiritual meaning of the texts."

They merely prove that literalistic inerrancy is a false notion held by some Protestant groups in the narrow sense, and the fact that the real value of the Bible is not as an inerrant source of astronomical knowledge or geography or zoology, but of God's inerrant message, and our spiritual awareness of Divine Economy, in the broadest sense.

Protestants believe it's the original documents that are the inspired writings of God-not the translations.

We have no way of knowing what is the original Scripture. The oldest complete copy of Old Testament is Septuagint (LXX), dating back 200 years B.C. The oldest Hebrew complete set of all books in our Old Testament (the Mesoretic Text, MT) dates back to 1,000 A.D.; earlier fragments, but not complete books, notwithstanding.

So the Jewish idea of righteousness wasn't as far removed or different than you might think

Jews do not see a need for man to be saved; nor do they believe that anyone can atone for another man's sins. They do believe that God gives everyone a chance to become good by choice.

They have a very poorly defined concept of heaven and hell, more in terms of proximity to God then separate entities, just as they do not see evil being outside of God's creation.

They do not see man justified by grace or even needing faith to be righteous. They simply believe that by being good (in a worldly sense) makes man "acceptable to God."

It is a commonly but nonetheless erroneously held belief that Sadducees did not believe in angels and afterlife. Some didn't. You must understand that the two sects mentioned in the New Testament, Sadducees, and Pharisees came into being about 200 BC and the former died out around 100 AD,; tha latter having been transformed into modern-day rabbinical Jews. Neither sect, and that includes the third group -- the Essenes, represents "the" Judaism.

Clearly, the Essenes held on to Scriptures that validate much of LXX, so no one is to say which of the "original" Scripture is to be used as the "original."

Christianity clearly introduced a new and as yet to them unknown variable into Jewish theologies -- salvation by grace, independent of our works; fulfillment of the Law through love, rather then by works alone. The idea that one must believe to be acceptable to God is as novel to the Jews today as it was back then.

It is really astonishing that Christianity uses Jewish Scripture as the basis for its theology, and yet differs so much from Judaism.

[HarleyD]

They merely prove that literalistic inerrancy is a false notion held by some Protestant groups in the narrow sense, and the fact that the real value of the Bible is not as an inerrant source of astronomical knowledge or geography or zoology, but of God's inerrant message, and our spiritual awareness of Divine Economy, in the broadest sense.

I'm not sure what you are referring to. I would agree with Agrarian statement that whether a translation stated Jesus was "in the house" or "by the house" means nothing with the overall context of what God is trying to convey. However that is different that saying Jonah is a story meant to convey a spiritual truth or it was impossible for the Great Flood to cover the entire world. The Bible clearly states this to be so. You can either believe it to be so or dismiss it. However if you dismiss this, or any event in scripture, then you might just as well dismiss everything else.

It has always been held by the early church fathers (and even our pre-Christ Hebrew fathers) that the Bible was the error free writing of God given to man. The early church fathers took great care to distinguish between God's word by setting it aside in the scriptures we have today.

Today many want to distance themselves from this position claiming there are all sorts of astronomical, geographical, or zoological errors, so the scripture must be only for "spiritual awareness". This is utter nonsense. Would you want to make the claim the Virgin Birth is biologically impossible so that it must be "spiritual" interpretation? There have been people who have made such claims.

We have no way of knowing what is the original Scripture.

Of course we don't have any way of knowing what is the original. It doesn't matter as both Agrarian and I've pointed out. There is very little inconsistencies between the documents and the inconsistencies that do exist are very minor with no effect on doctrine.

The idea that one must believe to be acceptable to God is as novel to the Jews today as it was back then. It is really astonishing that Christianity uses Jewish Scripture as the basis for its theology, and yet differs so much from Judaism.

There is nothing "novel" about Christianity nor was there anything novel about it at the time. There were many Jew who understood and came to God through faith accepting Jesus as the Messiah promised by God in the Old Testament scriptures. For over 1900 years the Church/church has always held that Gentiles were "grafted" into the Jewish belief structure, not that there was a new approach. In fact Paul takes great pains to show that our belief system is exactly as Abraham. I believe there is a thread on this showing how we are losing this view.