Posted on 03/18/2016 9:19:10 AM PDT by Sam's Army
The Bible is the Word of God, which errs. From the advent of neoorthodox theology in the early twentieth century, this assertion has become a mantra among those who want to have a high view of Scripture while avoiding the academic liability of asserting biblical infallibility and inerrancy. But this statement represents the classic case of having ones cake and eating it too. It is the quintessential oxymoron.
Let us look again at this untenable theological formula. If we eliminate the first part, The Bible is, we get The Word of God, which errs. If we parse it further and scratch out the Word of and which, we reach the bottom line:
God errs.
The idea that God errs in any way, in any place, or in any endeavor is repugnant to the mind as well as the soul. Here, biblical criticism reaches the nadir of biblical vandalism.
How could any sentient creature conceive of a formula that speaks of the Word of God as errant? It would seem obvious that if a book is the Word of God, it does not (indeed, cannot) err. If it errs, then it is not (indeed, cannot be) the Word of God.
To attribute to God any errancy or fallibility is dialectical theology with a vengeance.
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To attribute to God any errancy or fallibility is dialectical theology with a vengeance.
Perhaps we can resolve the antinomy by saying that the Bible originates with Gods divine revelation, which carries the mark of his infallible truth, but this revelation is mediated through human authors, who, by virtue of their humanity, taint and corrupt that original revelation by their penchant for error. Errare humanum est (To err is human), cried Karl Barth, insisting that by denying error, one is left with a docetic Biblea Bible that merely seems to be human, but is in reality only a product of a phantom humanity.
Who would argue against the human proclivity for error? Indeed, that proclivity is the reason for the biblical concepts of inspiration and divine superintendence of Scripture. Classic orthodox theology has always maintained that the Holy Spirit overcomes human error in producing the biblical text.
Barth said the Bible is the Word (verbum) of God, but not the words (verba) of God. With this act of theological gymnastics, he hoped to solve the unsolvable dilemma of calling the Bible the Word of God, which errs. If the Bible is errant, then it is a book of human reflection on divine revelationjust another human volume of theology. It may have deep theological insight, but it is not the Word of God.
Critics of inerrancy argue that the doctrine is an invention of seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism, where reason trumped revelationwhich would mean it was not the doctrine of the magisterial Reformers. For example, they note that Martin Luther never used the term inerrancy. Thats correct. What he said was that the Scriptures never err. Neither did John Calvin use the term. He said that the Bible should be received as if we heard its words audibly from the mouth of God. The Reformers, though, not using the term inerrancy, clearly articulated the concept.
Irenaeus lived long before the seventeenth century, as did Augustine, Paul the apostle, and Jesus. These all, among others, clearly taught the absolute truthfulness of Scripture.
The churchs defense of inerrancy rests upon the churchs confidence in the view of Scripture held and taught by Jesus himself. We wish to have a view of Scripture that is neither higher nor lower than his view.
The full trustworthiness of sacred Scripture must be defended in every generation, against every criticism. That is the genius of The Inerrant Word: Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives. We need to listen closely to this recent defense.
I’ve heard Gawd admitted he erred when he made the avacado pit too big.
...as they do translating it, it is called human error which has existed since Eve's chat with the serpent in the garden.
“It is possible to write down equations of motion for three bodies in a Newtonian Gravitational Field. If the initial positions and velocities, i.e., the boundary conditions, are known, then one can use the differential equations of motion to calculate future positions, but it is impossible to write down explicit equations for the orbits of the objects.”
Indeed, I don’t think most people realize how absolutely hamstrung physicists are when trying to accurately describe even relatively simple dynamic systems. Yet, if we can’t solve something as simple as the 3 body problem, how can we model a much more complex dynamic system like climate? It’s an exercise in futility. With the 3 body problem we at least know most of the variables, but with climate we have no idea how many variables we are missing.
Expand that from the climate of one planet to cosmologically modeling the life of the entire universe, and the missing data and errors are only going to multiply exponentially. Yet we fancy we can actually craft reliable theories on the basis of such dodgy math :)
“What is a scripture ?”
In that verse, it means the Torah and Tanakh of the Hebrews. The word used translated literally as “writings”, with the implied sense of “holy writings”, and those were the only holy writings that would have been recognized by the people being spoken to.
What made them “holy’? Was it The Council of Laodicia in 311 A.D.? What about the estimated 3000 writings rejected ? Just asking.
The Holy Bible - the most vilified, despised, hated, questioned, disputed, challenged, doubted, accepted, praised, revered, turned-to, strengthening, loved, best selling book in all the world for all time.
Luther thought so.
Luther found fault with the Catholics, the Pope, the Saints and the deification of Mary.
That is the classic rewrite of “God’s Word” in which we are not to add one “dot or tittle”. Jesus had zero blood of David unless you accept that Joseph was the father of Jesus— Which none of us do. To say that Jesus had the blood line of David is yet another error. The inerrantcy crowd want the strict interpretation until it comes to errors . Then they want to rewrite what it clearly says right on the page. But thanks, I enjoyed reading that stuff again. Huge problems exist with that contradiction.
I have concluded that some actually have an iconic worship on the Bible more than the Son Of God. That becomes a “false idle” rather quickly especially the King James mistranslation of the Greek word EKKLESIA from it’s actual clear meaning of “The called out” ( or all believers) to the word “church” from the old English word for Circle. To fathom the import of that mistranslation is truly mind boggling. But that is another level of error not for this discussion.
What does any of that have to do with Luther editing the bible to his own whims?
It only errs in areas of sexual morality. And pride.
“But that is not the greatest error. Joseph was not the father of Jesus.”
Actually, Joseph was the father of Jesus. Not in the biological sense, but in the legal sense. Jesus was born to Mary after Mary wedded Joseph, so he was legally Joseph’s son, regardless of who the biological father was. Joseph could have prevented that by declaring Jesus a bastard (and accusing Mary of adultery), but he did not, so Jesus remained Joseph’s son.
There was no blood line to David. Right? zero?
He translated it from Greek into a language spoken by common people, instead of a translation of a translation (Latin) understood only by the clergy.
Until then, the masses had to take their word for it,, and understand not much. The Roman elites had the corner on the market, and made themselves the purveyors/enforcers of faith and the necessary “middleman” with God.
They could, and did, make God’s word say whatever they wanted it to.
“What made them holy? Was it The Council of Laodicia in 311 A.D.?”
No... how could that make any kind of sense? The verse that was quoted was written long before that council was held. They were “holy” because they were the writings of the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, delivered to them by God.
“What about the estimated 3000 writings rejected ?”
That’s an extremely broad question. Some of those 3000 writings never would have even been considered by the council, because they were not Hebrew or Christian writings to begin with. When people talk about “3000 books”, they are including works from the gnostics and other pagan sects in order to inflate the total. The actual number of books that were under consideration was orders of magnitude smaller.
For those that were evaluated, they would have been evaluated individually, so the reasons for their not being included would have been individual reasons. You can’t give blanket answers as to why they were rejected, because they were rejected for reasons specific to each individual work.
Perhaps through Mary’s side of the family, but not in the male line.
Bloodline and inheritance are not equal.
No.
This is why we KNOW that the Apocryphal/Deuterocananical books are not Divinely inspired scripture. God doesn't make mistakes.
**Joseph was not the father of Jesus. Bad error.**
Sure he was.
As far as a legal record goes, Joseph was the father of Jesus.
But as we continue to read we discover who his real father is.
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