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How convincing do you find these arguments/evidences or 'proofs'?
Indeed, could these same arguments also apply to the Qu'ran, for example?
I think the only one that offers something somewhat objective are the prophecies - and these have to be carefully scrutinised. The others well, they don't really prove it's God's word do they? For instance, the integrity of the authors?? That's supposed to be evidence/proof? I can take it on faith that they were, but it is a subjective judgement.
If you don't find these reasons satisfying, what other evidence would you cite or do you think the Bible does not contain?
For instance, perhaps everytime somebody read it they'd see a flash of blinding light?
That maybe, the entire Bible was delivered, all 66 books, by an angel visibly in front of a crowd of 10,000 people?
Archeological evidence might mean it's a good history book, but of that argument, I've never understood what it had to do with it being God's word unless, for instance, one found evidence of say miraculous events, like an ark atop Mt. Ararat, the Egyptian chariots on the Red Sea. I'm waiting for something like this.
For someone trying to strengthen my faith I find the reasons given by got questions, similar to other Christian sources, disappointing.
Still, I don't think they're totally without validity. I mean the Bible is certainly a special book, but one could indeed question each of these points as well. My main thing is, none of these arguments bar prophecy (if indeed the Bible reliably predicts all these events) proves the divinity of the words of the Bible in FULL.
How convincing do you find these arguments/evidences or 'proofs'?
Indeed, could these same arguments also apply to the Qu'ran, for example?
I think the only one that offers something somewhat objective are the prophecies - and these have to be carefully scrutinised. The others well, they don't really prove it's God's word do they? For instance, the integrity of the authors?? That's supposed to be evidence/proof? I can take it on faith that they were, but it is a subjective judgement.
If you don't find these reasons satisfying, what other evidence would you cite or do you think the Bible does not contain?
For instance, perhaps everytime somebody read it they'd see a flash of blinding light?
That maybe, the entire Bible was delivered, all 66 books, by an angel visibly in front of a crowd of 10,000 people?
Archeological evidence might mean it's a good history book, but of that argument, I've never understood what it had to do with it being God's word unless, for instance, one found evidence of say miraculous events, like an ark atop Mt. Ararat, the Egyptian chariots on the Red Sea. I'm waiting for something like this.
For someone trying to strengthen my faith I find the reasons given by got questions, similar to other Christian sources, disappointing.
Still, I don't think they're totally without validity. I mean the Bible is certainly a special book, but one could indeed question each of these points as well. My main thing is, none of these arguments bar prophecy (if indeed the Bible reliably predicts all these events) proves the divinity of the words of the Bible in FULL.
I think those arguments are infantile and fallacious. Here are some examples:
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There can be no doubt that the Bible does claim to be the very Word of God. This is clearly seen in Paul’s commendation to Timothy: “… from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
The author of 2 Timothy does not identify what is and is not scripture, so the author of this argument is making a huge leap in just assuming that "all scripture"="the Bible." It doesn't. The author was actually just referring to Jewish scriptures, and not necessarily the same Jewish scriptures used today. The Bible had not even been completed yet. In fact, it was still about 50 years from being finished, with the final canon not being settled for centuries. Next, the author has no idea what "God-breathed" actually means, they're just--again--assuming that it means exactly what their religious tradition believes it means: "inerrant and infallible word of God." Next:
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One of the first internal evidences that the Bible is truly God’s Word is seen in its unity. Even though it is really sixty-six individual books, written on three continents, in three different languages, over a period of approximately 1500 years, by more than 40 authors who came from many walks of life, the Bible remains one unified book from beginning to end without contradiction.
This is just demonstrably false. The Bible demonstrably contradicts itself hundreds of times. For example, Sennacherib’s invasion is an historical event that is corroborated by Assyrian sources, but there are three different versions of Hezekiah’s reaction to it in 2 Kings. The shortest, found in 2 Kgs 18:13–16, states that Hezekiah immediately paid Sennacherib his tribute when he demanded it, completely emptying his treasury and stripping precious metals from the architecture to find the necessary funds. The next account begins in v. 17 and has Rabshakeh and his colleagues come to accuse Hezekiah of rebelling. (It should be pointed out that this second account uses a different spelling of Hezekiah’s name from the first account.) That account ends at 2 Kgs 19:9a and also includes vv. 36–37. The third account extends from 2 Kgs 19:9b–35, and repeats the story of Sennacherib’s message to Hezekiah, only this time the messengers are nameless and the communication is private. Portions of the speech are repeated verbatim, though. In this last account Hezekiah offers his own intercessory prayer and Isaiah comes to deliver the response. In the second account, though, it is Isaiah who offers the prayer and the response. The second account appeals to Deuteronomistic vernacular and avoids all mention of angels (a staple of early Deuteronomistic literature), while the third account appeals heavily to Isaianic traditions and attributes Sennacherib’s failure to angelic intervention. Thus we have three accounts: in the first Hezekiah simply abandons his alliance with Egypt and pays Sennacherib off; in the second he refuses to pay and Sennacherib abandons his campaign because of intrigue elsewhere; in the third Hezekiah refuses to pay and Sennacherib’s army is devastated by divine intervention. Shortly afterward when a Babylonian envoy visits Jerusalem, Hezekiah shows him a treasury full of riches. The univocality of the Bible is here flatly precluded.
Then there's the problem of who killed Goliath, which I discussed earlier. The relevant verses are 1 Sam 17:50, 2 Sam 21:19, and 1 Chr 20:5:
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1 Sam 17:5: Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand."
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2 Sam 21:19: And there was war with the Philistines again at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
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1 Chr 20:5: And there was war with the Philistines again, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
Thus, according to 1 Chr 20:5, David killed Goliath and Elhanan killed his brother, whose name was Lahmi. The problem, however, is that there’s no attestation of such a name (“My Bread”) in any ancient language. It simply does not fit with ancient naming conventions. It is completely out of place as a name. Second, the word is Semitic, and the Philistines were not Semites. “Goliath” is not a Semitic name. To accept this assumption we would also have to assume that Goliath’s parents gave one of their sons a name based on the language of their enemies during the first generation of their primary conflicts. There's no evidence of this anywhere in Philistine history, and postulating that the name was so unique because they didn't know the language is just ludicrous. No one gave their children bizarre names in other languages they didn't even understand. Such a series of assumptions is absolutely unwarranted and can quite confidently be rejected. Lastly, “the Bethlehemite” is without doubt the correct reading, since 2 Sam 23:24 and 1 Chr 11:26 make clear that Elhanan was indeed the son of a Bethlehemite. The father’s name was messed up in 2 Sam 21:19 because of dittography, but there is simply no reason to reject the rest of the account, and certainly not in favor of as ridiculous and unfounded an explanation as that forwarded by Archer. The author of Chronicles was obviously unaware of the problems with his attempt to harmonize these originally disparate passages, which is not a surprise--he was separated from that culture by several centuries. He was clever in using closely related words to alter his original text and harmonize it with the more prominent tradition, but the corruption lies with that author and not with 2 Samuel. 2 Sam 21:19 does say that Elhanan killed Goliath. This is a genuine and a very clear contradiction.
Of course, for anti-intellectual and pseudo-academic fundamentalists, there can be no contradictions, so whatever rationalizations can be dreamed up to make these go away must be true. This occurred on another thread where I pointed out that Exod 6:3 has God state that he was not known by the name Yhwh to the patriarchal generations, in direct contradiction to numerous places in Genesis where the patriarchs explicitly appeal to Yhwh's name. Someone tried to argue that Exod 6:3, because of the grammar, actually means the exact opposite: it doesn't mean "by my name I was not known to them," it means "by the divine characterizations that most commonly are associated with my name I wasn't known to them, but my name was absolutely known." This is just ludicrous, however, and the grammar does absolutely no such thing. For fundies, however, whatever gets the job done is good enough, and even though they don't know the grammar, they will insist it's true with all the conviction and vehemence they can muster.
Then there's this gem:
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Another of the internal evidences that indicates the Bible is truly God’s Word is the prophecies contained within its pages. The Bible contains hundreds of detailed prophecies relating to the future of individual nations including Israel, certain cities, and mankind. Other prophecies concern the coming of One who would be the Messiah, the Savior of all who would believe in Him. Unlike the prophecies found in other religious books or those by men such as Nostradamus, biblical prophecies are extremely detailed. There are over three hundred prophecies concerning Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Not only was it foretold where He would be born and His lineage, but also how He would die and that He would rise again. There simply is no logical way to explain the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible other than by divine origin. There is no other religious book with the extent or type of predictive prophecy that the Bible contains.
More absolute lunacy. First, a book saying its own prophecies were fulfilled is not particularly special. Anyone can do that, and there are many other religious texts that do the same that fundies would never grant come from anywhere but the devil. Next, the prophecies of the Bible are not at all extremely detailed, and the ones that are, are not fulfilled anywhere. For instance, the prophecy of Daniel describing the destruction of Jerusalem is extremely detailed up to the point that the Messiah comes. The funny thing is, that detail perfectly matches the conquest of Antiochus in the mid-second century BCE. The reason the details get fuzzy right at the Messiah's coming is because the prophecy was written at the time the events were taking place, so they can described the situation in detail. They're writing a future situation into the prophecy that they want to happen, so they can't give a lot of detail. That prophecy has the Messiah coming and restoring the Davidic reign immediately following Antiochus' death. This never happened, of course. Christ described the second coming as occurring within the lifetime of the people who witnessed the destruction of the temple. Why? Because the text was written right after the destruction of the temple, and the authors were trying to ensure people that the end times were about to happen. You cannot get any more explicit and detailed than 'Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Of course, that didn't happen.
Next:
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A third internal evidence of the divine origin of the Bible is its unique authority and power. While this evidence is more subjective than the first two, it is no less a powerful testimony of the divine origin of the Bible. The Bible’s authority is unlike any other book ever written. This authority and power are best seen in the way countless lives have been transformed by the supernatural power of God’s Word. Drug addicts have been cured by it, homosexuals set free by it, derelicts and deadbeats transformed by it, hardened criminals reformed by it, sinners rebuked by it, and hate turned to love by it. The Bible does possess a dynamic and transforming power that is only possible because it is truly God’s Word
Of course, there are more people in the world whose lives have been transformed by the Quran, but don't tell a fundamentalist Christian that.
Next:
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There are also external evidences that indicate the Bible is truly the Word of God. One is the historicity of the Bible. Because the Bible details historical events, its truthfulness and accuracy are subject to verification like any other historical document. Through both archaeological evidences and other writings, the historical accounts of the Bible have been proven time and time again to be accurate and true.
Again, this is completely and totally false. Archaeological and textual evidence shows some things in the Bible are true, but those things all date to after the tenth century BCE, and even then, not a single spiritual claim made by the Bible has ever been verified. Everything before the tenth century BCE not only is not verified, but the evidence quite clearly contradicts the biblical accounts. Fundamentalists ignore all that, though.
Next:
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Another external evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word is the integrity of its human authors. As mentioned earlier, God used men from many walks of life to record His words. In studying the lives of these men, we find them to be honest and sincere. The fact that they were willing to die often excruciating deaths for what they believed testifies that these ordinary yet honest men truly believed God had spoken to them.
Of course, you have to already believe that the text is true before you can appeal to assertions made by the text as evidence of the veracity of the assertions made by the text.
I'm gonna stop there. That page is a travesty of logic and reason. It just repeats and asserts anti-intellectual dogmas about the Bible without a word in the way of actual evidence or response to concerns.
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Timothy was referring to the Jewish canon, the Tanakh, so technically that does not apply to the NT or even the book of Timothy itself. Or possibly even the Torah, I'm not sure. I think some try too hard to prove the 'internal consistency' of the Bible as if it has to be totally consistent to have ANY truth in it. They can't seem to accept that maybe the Bible is not perfect.
I think other prophecies in the Bible do predict Jesus, though, although that verse about his return still bothers me.
Timothy was referring to the Jewish canon, the Tanakh, so technically that does not apply to the NT or even the book of Timothy itself.
Actually, Peter referred to Paul's writings as scripture. Paul certainly seemed to think he was writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit.
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Or possibly even the Torah, I'm not sure. I think some try too hard to prove the 'internal consistency' of the Bible as if it has to be totally consistent to have ANY truth in it. They can't seem to accept that maybe the Bible is not perfect.
Of course it's perfect. God, the Holy Spirit inspired it. He doesn't make mistakes.
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I think other prophecies in the Bible do predict Jesus, though,
There are all sorts of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Actually, Peter referred to Paul's writings as scripture. Paul certainly seemed to think he was writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit.
Of course it's perfect. God, the Holy Spirit inspired it. He doesn't make mistakes.
There are all sorts of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
Of course if you start with the premise that the Holy Spirit inspired it...but if you start from the premise that it's a book, like any other, and we're trying to prove it's special, supernatural, what evidence do we cite?
Of course if you start with the premise that the Holy Spirit inspired it...but if you start from the premise that it's a book, like any other, and we're trying to prove it's special, supernatural, what evidence do we cite?
I doubt you'd believe it was if the angel Gabriel appeared to you to present you with an autographed copy.
Actually, Peter referred to Paul's writings as scripture.
But Peter's not the one who made the statement about scripture being God-breathed. If we're evaluating the notion of inspiration, you can't just presuppose that everything we're evaluating is already inspired.
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Originally Posted by Vizio
Paul certainly seemed to think he was writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit.
And Jude thought that the book of Enoch actually preserved the inspired and inerrant words of the prophet Enoch. Oddly, I can pretty much guarantee that you do not. I can say the same about the Assumption of Moses, which Jude also clearly thought was scripture.
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Originally Posted by Vizio
Of course it's perfect. God, the Holy Spirit inspired it. He doesn't make mistakes.
Yes, that's the dogmatism. What you're forgetting is to provide any reason at all to believe that God did in fact inspire it. Saying "It's true because God inspired it" is no different from saying "It's true because it's true," or more accurately, "It's true because I say so."
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Originally Posted by Vizio
There are all sorts of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
No there aren't. The only text that is even remotely messianic is Daniel, and that's only because it was written in the mid-second century BCE.
No there aren't. The only text that is even remotely messianic is Daniel, and that's only because it was written in the mid-second century BCE.
Nope.
With reference to Alexander the Great, Flavius Josephus wrote the following;
'And when the book of Daniel was shewed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended;' [Antiquities of the Jews, book XI, chapter VIII, section 5]
Alexander the Great lived from about 356 BC. to about 323 BC.
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