Inerrancy and Infallibility - Are they the same thing? (tradition, women, preacher)

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Vizio

I would suggest you really do some research into the area of textual criticism. There are entire branches of copies that can be identified. Experts can identify the handwriting and even the scribe that copied certain copies. They can compare lines of copies and see where an error might have crept in, and was corrected later on.

I don't dispute that, which is why I am not hung up on possible errors. I read the Bible as it is printed and without any attempt to find something that might be wrong with it.

The fact that none of the current books reference these supposed missing books tells me that it isn't really an issue.

Honestly? It's really kind of a non-issue.

Why is it a non-issue? I suspect that anything you don't have a good answer for qualifies as a non-issue.

Eusebius of Caesara, one of the most notable Church historians to have ever lived, described (in about 300 A.D.) a canon which included only twenty-seven of the books in today's New Testament. Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter where described as questionable, as were Jude and Revelation. In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus continued to reject Revelation and states, "You have all. If there is any any besides these, it is not among the genuine [books]." The canon he set forth was ratified some three centuries later.

The Greek Codex Claromontanus, one of the most significant New Testament manuscripts, contains a list of the canonical books of the fourth century. (The manuscript itself originates in the sixth century, however most scholars believe that the actual list dates back to the Alexandrian Church from two centuries earlier.) That list did not exclude Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians or Hebrews. But guess what? It does include the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

And what about about Paul's epistles? Why, for instance, was his epistle to the Laodiceans considered less authoritative than his other epistles? Or was it? Maybe it had just been lost prior to when the first canon was compiled. It's mentioned in Colossians 4:16, for instance. Obviously, it was considered authoritative at the time it was written. Paul also wrote an additional epistle to the Ephesians and another to the Corinthians. When did his "apostolic authorship" come into question? Jude, too, wrote another epistle. Why would it have be considered so unreliable as to have been intentionally omitted from the today's canon?

[Vizio]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

I don't dispute that, which is why I am not hung up on possible errors. I read the Bible as it is printed and without any attempt to find something that might be wrong with it.

Why is it a non-issue? I suspect that anything you don't have a good answer for qualifies as a non-issue.

What do you expect to find in these "missing books"?

Eusebius of Caesara, one of the most notable Church historians to have ever lived, described (in about 300 A.D.) a canon which included only twenty-seven of the books in today's New Testament. Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter where described as questionable, as were Jude and Revelation. In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus continued to reject Revelation and states, "You have all. If there is any any besides these, it is not among the genuine [books]." The canon he set forth was ratified some three centuries later.

Good for them. Even if we toss those books out, we have more than enough to base our faith on.

The Greek Codex Claromontanus, one of the most significant New Testament manuscripts, contains a list of the canonical books of the fourth century. (The manuscript itself originates in the sixth century, however most scholars believe that the actual list dates back to the Alexandrian Church from two centuries earlier.) That list did not exclude Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians or Hebrews. But guess what? It does include the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Have you read either the Epistle of Barnabas or Shepherd of Hermas? I would highly question any list that would include those 2 as canonical.

And what about about Paul's epistles? Why, for instance, was his epistle to the Laodiceans considered less authoritative than his other epistles? Or was it?

Was it? Do you know that?

Maybe it had just been lost prior to when the first canon was compiled. It's mentioned in Colossians 4:16, for instance. Obviously, it was considered authoritative at the time it was written.

Or perhaps God simply didn't see the need to preserve it.

Paul also wrote an additional epistle to the Ephesians and another to the Corinthians. When did his "apostolic authorship" come into question? Jude, too, wrote another epistle. Why would it have be considered so unreliable as to have been intentionally omitted from the today's canon?

He actually likely wrote 2 more to the Corinthians. I have no idea why God did not see fit to have them preserved. Perhaps they did not contain anything worth preserving.


None of these do anything to argue against Scriptural inerrancy.

[Aristotle's Child]

[quote=Hawkins;41723711]Yes. So?

>>You don't have the intelligence to interpret those information correctly. That's the situation.<<


RESPONSE: Actually, I think I do.

I hadn't planned to get into textural criticism of the Bible, but I'll indulge Hawkins this one time.

It can be easily demonstrated that the "innerrant" Bible is full of errors. Using modern scholorship, let's take a quick look at the Trinity claims and the historicity of the first seven books of the Bible.

Scriptural Problem 1.

Trinity problems and divine inspiration

Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (NIV)

Matthew 28:19 - A Verse Used to Support the Trinity | BiblicalUnitarian.com
Eusebius (c. 260—c. 340) was the Bishop of Caesarea and is known as “the Father of Church History.” Although he wrote prolifically, his most celebrated work is his Ecclesiastical History, a history of the Church from the Apostolic period until his own time. Today it is still the principal work on the history of the Church at that time. Eusebius quotes many verses in his writings, and Matthew 28:19 is one of them. He never quotes it as it appears today in modern Bibles, but always finishes the verse with the words “in my name.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus%27_Name_doctrine
Many Jesus' Name believers claim the development of baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" is a post-Apostolic interpolation and corruption. Some claim that the "Trinitarian" clause in Matthew 28:19 was added to Matthew's text in the 2nd/3rd century.[ Footnote: Matthew 28:19 text, Baptism in the New Testament, G.R. Beasley-Murray, p 83]
They cite as evidence that no record exists in the New Testament of someone being baptized with the Trinitarian formula.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_Johanneum
The passage in question, 1 John 5:7-8 (KJV), with the Comma in bold print, reads:
7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.8. And there are three that bear witness in earth,the spirit, and the water, and the blood:and these three agree in one.”

“Erasmus is said to have replied to his critics that the Comma did not occur in any of the Greek manuscripts he could find, but that he would add it to future editions if it appeared in a single Greek manuscript.[109] Such a manuscript was subsequently produced, some say concocted, by a Franciscan, and Erasmus, true to his word, added the Comma to his 1522 edition, but with a lengthy footnote setting out his suspicion that the manuscript had been prepared expressly to confute him. This Erasmus change was accepted into the Received Text editions, the chief source for the King James Version, thereby fixing the Comma firmly in the English-language scriptures for centuries.[109]

Note: It's been dropped from most modern bibles or heavily footnoted. It appears to have entered the Latin text from a footnote found in a magin. And then only much later into the Received Test

Scriptural Problem 2

Archeological evidence indicates that the first seven book of the Bible (including the Exodus account) are Hebrew folklore that developed in Cananna the 7-8 Century BC.

(1) The Exodus: Does archaeology have a say? - Opinion - Jerusalem Post The Jerusalem Post The Exodus: Does archaeology have a say? By STEPHEN GABRIEL ROSENBERG \04/14/2014

" The whole subject of the Exodus is embarrassing to archaeologists. The Exodus is so fundamental to us and our Jewish sources that it is embarrassing that there is no evidence outside of the Bible to support it. So we prefer not to talk about it, and hate to be asked about it….So that makes archaeologists reluctant to have to tell our brethren and ourselves that there is nothing in Egyptian records to support it. Nothing on the slavery of the Israelites, nothing on the plagues that persuaded Pharaoh to let them go, nothing on the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, nothing.

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Free Press, New York, 2001, 385 pp., ISBN 0-684-86912-8 The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts,

“The book remarks that, despite modern archaeological investigations and the meticulous ancient Egyptian records from the period of Ramesses II, there is an obvious lack of any archaeological evidence for the migration of a band of semitic people across the Sinai Peninsula, except for the Hyksos.(pg 62-63)

….. As noted by a reviewer on Salon.com the approach and conclusions of The Bible Unearthed are not particularly new. Ze'ev Herzog, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, wrote a cover story for Haaretz in 1999 in which he reached similar conclusions following the same methodology; Herzog noted also that some of these findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades, even though they have only recently begun to make a dent in the awareness of the general public

Even though Mr. Hawkins states that "You don't have the intelligence to interpret those information correctly, I really think I can. I wonder where he gets his information? Maybe he can help me answer some of the questions.

[Aristotle's Child]

Originally Posted by Vizio

>>Most Evangelical churches do teach that Scripture is inerrant -- meaning without error. Infallibility would mean that it is unable to commit an error. Since Scripture is a closed canon, and is not actually a living being, infallibility would not really apply to it. We could say that God is infallible, meaning he cannot make an error. A Catholic would claim the Pope is infallible in regards to faith and doctrine.<<

RESPONSE:

Why would a Catholic claim that? I agree with the sense of what you say. But we may differ (a little) on how you expressed it. True, claims of infallibility and inerrancy are somewhat different but they have the same root - the literal interpretation of scripture. Perhaps we can examine the differences.


>>I'm not sure I would really say that either of those verses you quoted says anything about Scripture being inerrant. Those are verses about Christ's church. The logical question to ask in light of those verses is, "What is the Church?" A Catholic would say the Roman Catholic church. I don't see that to be so evident in Scripture, though. Having said that, I honestly don't care to have the argument regarding Papal infallibility, or Ecclesiology at this time. The Catholic and I will just have to agree to disagree. <<

RESPONSE: Ah, gee! You'll be ruining the fun. I planned to show that both claims are spurious, precisely because both rely on a literal interpretation of scripture.

>>My major proof text for an inerrant Scripture is 2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work."<<

RESPONSE: This probably isn't the place to bring this up, but I assume you know that it is very doubtful that Paul wrote Timothy. And aren't you using circular reasoning? "We have to believe that scripture is correct because it is inerrant." That's like arguing, "I can prove that God exists because it says so in the Bible."

>>If we believe that Scripture is "God-breathed", then the logical question is how can it have errors if God is responsible for it?

RESPONSE: Viewed alternately, if scripture can be shown to contain errors, then it can't be "God breathed." Right?

Or as Pope Leo XIII put it in Providentissimus deus in 1893 "Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture.

But maybe not too "infallibly," ya think?

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Vizio

What do you expect to find in these "missing books"?

How in the world would I know?

Have you read either the Epistle of Barnabas or Shepherd of Hermas? I would highly question any list that would include those 2 as canonical.

You may very well question such a list. That's beside the point. The point is that at one time, they were considered canonical. Since you're so sure that God was right there determining which books should be included and which ones weren't, why didn't He make His mind up back in the third century? If it was His choice all along, why did He apparently keep changing His mind?

Or perhaps God simply didn't see the need to preserve it.

Or, more likely, God didn't have anything to do with what was preserved and what wasn't.

He actually likely wrote 2 more to the Corinthians. I have no idea why God did not see fit to have them preserved. Perhaps they did not contain anything worth preserving.

But you are convinced that it was God's choice to not have them preserved, and that's what blows my mind. Why can't you just admit that there could have been dozens of reasons why they were not preserved, none of them having anything to do with what God "saw fit" to do? He's God, for crying out loud, Vizio. Why did He even involve human beings in the process at all? If He involved them, He knew that there would be mistakes.

You are absolutely sure that everything God wanted to be preserved was preserved, and yet you do not have one shred of evidence to support this statement.

None of these do anything to argue against Scriptural inerrancy.

I had no idea I was arguing against scriptural inerrancy. All I thought I was doing was provide a little bit of history about how the "perfectly preserved canon" has been composed of different books throughout the ages.

[Aristotle's Child]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Amen. The inspirations can be as true and pure as the driven snow, but if the receiver is fallible and ignorant the result will be corrupted and misinterpreted.
Of course not. The receivers were still human and ignorant so nothing prevents them from being corrupted and misinterpreted.

RESPONSE:

Certainly not the guidence of the Holy Spirit, right?

See my previous post on the claims of Providentissimus.

But whatever the source, if you admit error, then you have recognized that scripture contains errors either by the original writers or some later copyists (or interpolators).

Hence the inerrancy claim is dead in the water!

[StanJP]

Originally Posted by Aristotle's Child

We seem to be trying to focus on scripture. Are all God's teaching (such as these) found in scripture inerrant and infallible?

Not understanding the context or BIG picture is one thing, but comparing YOUR own moral code to that of God's is another thing altogether, and IMO quite supercilious in nature. If God is who His word says He is, then WHO are you to judge God?

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by StanJP

Not understanding the context or BIG picture is one thing, but comparing YOUR own moral code to that of God's is another thing altogether, and IMO quite supercilious in nature. If God is who His word says He is, then WHO are you to judge God?

You just refuse to get it, don't you? The moral code we are applying to the Bible is the one Jesus taught and demonstrated unambiguously. We are not judging God, we are judging the ignorant and superstitious claims ABOUT God of our primitive ancestors. It is YOU and those like you who allow the moral code of those ignorant primitive savages and barbarians to corrupt what Christ taught and cause you to misinterpret His sacrifice to our barbarity as a blood sacrifice to appease God.

[Aristotle's Child]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Amen. The inspirations can be as true and pure as the driven snow, but if the receiver is fallible and ignorant the result will be corrupted and misinterpreted.
Of course not. The receivers were still human and ignorant so nothing prevents them from being corrupted and misinterpreted.

RESPONSE:

An accurate observation! But ununfortunately a number of those of the fundamentalist persuasion seem to overlook the obvious.

Thank you!

AC

[Aristotle's Child]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

How about because He allowed human hands to be involved in preserving, transcribing and translating it?

RESPONSE:

I thought that God didn't make mistakes? It what you say is true, this was a serious blunder on God's part, wasn't it?