Biblical Statements About Infallibility/Inerrancy (A Theology / No Science Topic)

Hi Port:I'm surprised that someone from the literalist camp hasn't answered your initial question concerning which verses in the Bible declare the whole to be infallible. From my understanding of early Christian history (which is admittedly superficial - not an area of especial interest to me), I thought it was Augustine who originally declared the doctrine of literalism in his De genesi ad litteram, written around 410 CE. I'm mildly interested to hear what the literalists claim as the source for their interpretation.

Hi Quetzal:The first rule of Bible interpretation: A text means what it says and says what it means UNLESS one or more of the following are employed:1) Typology2) Symbolism3) Imagery4) Parable5) Analogy2nd Rule: Text without context is error.Persons wishing to strip the Bible of its supernatural meaning invented the "literalism" epithet. Since when do you not mean what you say or say what you mean ?When an individual author of a Biblical book is concluded to have written what is written, then that passage is the eternal word of God.This is the claim of the canon.

Hey Willow! How have you been?I'll bow to your superior knowledge of exegesis. Lacking any specific knowledge on my part in this area, I'll simply stipulate that you know whereof you speak. T'wasn't my intent to argue the interpretation, in any case. The issue I was after (and the question in the OP) wasn't whether or not the Bible was divinely inspired, but whether it makes explicit within the text that it is to be taken literally. IOW, what are the verses which so state? I would submit that if it doesn't state this explicitly, then you are accepting an interpretation (Augustine's in the absence of any earlier scholar) that may or may not be supported by the book itself. Augustine quite clearly takes the stance that the Bible SHOULD be taken word-for-word, not only in the De genesis but in several books of the "City of God" as well.So, where does it say this?

Hi Quetzal ! Not bad considering how I have been chased from evolution topic after evolution topic for posting material from a source asserted by my opponents to not qualify as a source. That is a given.It means what it says and says what it means unless the items mentioned in the previous post are employed. There aren't any. Yes, absolutely. Matthew 5:37 (Jesus speaking)

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Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.This verse means that we are not to say 'yes' if we mean 'no' and not to say 'no' if we mean 'yes'.Quetzal:Since when do you not mean what you say and say what you mean ?The only reason this "literal" issue exists is because certains do not/cannot/will not accept that the Bible means what it says and says what it means unless symbolism, typology, imagery, analogy, allegory, or parable are employed.This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 10-23-2004 03:12 PM

Heh. Yeah, I saw that. That's what you get for still trying to use Milton as a credible source. We had THAT argument about a year ago or so, IIRC. Hang in there and maybe get another source...Anyhooo, Right. However, 5 Matthew is the bit about Jesus fulfilling the law, and all those Leviticus-like proscriptions against fornication, adultery, turning the other cheek, etc, n'est-ce pas? In the specific verse you quoted, my understanding is Jesus is talking about being really careful in swearing oaths or something, right?

quote:

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33. Again you heard that it was told to the first people, 'Do not lie in your oaths, As your oaths before the Lord will be nullified.'
34. But, I am telling you, do not take an oath in vain, Neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God;
35. Nor by earth, which is the rug under his feet; And neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of a great king.
36. Nor by your head, should you swear, For you cannot turn one hair black or white.
37. Except your words should be, 'Yes, yes' and 'No, no.' Anything more is from the evil one.
(Source: Library of Congress, Aramaic Bible)

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I'm not sure how this verse applies to the question, but even if it did, it appears to be a pretty weak case. Not going to argue that it DOESN'T apply, just that to me it doesn't appear to. Right, I got that part the first time. This raises another question, however: How do you know when say, allegory or symbolism, are being used? Maybe the question should be rephrased to deal specifically with Genesis. Why is there any LESS symbolism, say, in Genesis than in any of the other non-history type OT chapters? The other issue with this response is how do you know that the Bible IS to be taken literally UNLESS one or more of those thingys is present if the Bible itself leaves the question open? Aren't you simply accepting somebody's idea of what the Bible says - said someone living possibly thousands of years after the Bible was compiled, and at least a century or more after Jesus? How do you know THEY'RE right?Edited to fix stupid UBB codes...This message has been edited by Quetzal, 10-23-2004 04:28 PM

Text without context is error.Matthew 5:371st context:The Bible, which CLAIMS to be the eternal word of God.2nd context:The New Testament which resides in the context of the Old Testament.3rd context:Context of Old Testament; mankind born separated from God because of Adam/Eve's sin. Mankind condemned by Mosaic Law by its impossible requirements and punishment of death for sin. This Old Covenant promised eternal life to anyone who kept it perfectly - no one ever did - obviously.4th context:New Testament, which is the New Covenant REPLACING the Old. This new covenant is that God will accept faith as the ONLY other way of relating to Him. This way is called the gospel which means "good news", hence the good news is that the Old Covenant and its demands are null and void IF a person fulfills their part of the New Covenant. (way of faith)5th context:Matthew 5:37 was uttered in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the Law Incarnate/Old Testament in the flesh/Jesus speaking. The INTENT of the Sermon on the Mount is to MAKE a person conclude that they cannot do it so they will see their need for the gospel = only other God ordained option to relate to Him/New Covenant.In this context, Jesus said to mean what you say and say what you mean BECAUSE the written word is the vehicle by which God communicates His will. IF it is eviscerated of meaning THEN the only other avenue to relate to Him (the gospel) is stripped of meaning and the Devil wins. Matthew 5:37

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".... anything beyond this comes from the evil one."The text will specify as such.Example: Galatians 4:22-24

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For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

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23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

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24 Which things are an ALLEGORY: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar....Symbolism: Numbers 21:7-9

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Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

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8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

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9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.The fiery serpent on the pole is a SYMBOL of the cross.Brass always symbolizes judgement (fell on Christ), hence the fiery serpent symbolizes the entity (Satan) who incited the people to sin, hence the N.T. claims Christ paid the price of our sins and IF we look at Him by faith we shall also be healed and live just like the 9th verse says. Where does the Bible leave the question open ?You are inferring this because there is no verse which says: "Thou shalt interpret scripture literally"This literalism thing is a ploy by persons to create a rule that says the Bible does not mean what it says.Why wouldn't it mean what it says ?If it didn't mean what it says then why didn't it say what others are saying it should of said ?If the writer didn't mean what He said then why did He write what He said ?Why didn't the author(s) say in the first place what they didn't mean to say ?What is your basis to interpret the Bible to not mean what it says ?The burden of proof is on you to prove that the Bible does not mean what it says and that we are to interpret it contrary to what it says. The Bible teaches that God speaks through the written word as interpreted by persons chosen by God who hold one of the God ordained offices of Ephesians 4:11,12 - 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

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12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:Listen closely:God gives us/you/I the choice as to who speaks for Him.We are to base our choice on the following subjective criteria:Are they following Jesus ?Do you hear His voice through them when they teach the Bible ?We must determine this by our own investigation/God-sense abilities.We can ask God and pray but at some point we must make up our mind and choose a Pastor to follow.WHEN we make the choice we then must follow them as they follow Christ, in so doing we follow Christ and the objective interpretation of the written word by the Pastor/Preacher.In my case I have decided Dr. Scott is following Jesus as I hear the voice of Christ through his Bible teaching.Modern anti-authority rebels reject this system of God because of idiot fundies who turn people off to God. But the cure of misuse is right-use not rejection of God ordained method of relating to Him.Quetzal:If Milton is so easy to refute, then why are all the "refutations" ad hominen/arguing the man attacks ?This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 10-23-2004 06:44 PM

Interesting reply. Thanks for clarifying 5 Matthew for me.INRE First Context: Isn't that what we're trying to find out? Does the Bible in fact make the claim that it's infallible?INRE Second and Third Context: Agreed. It's readily apparent even to me that that's what 5 Matthew is all about. Although you'll have to find a much more knowledgeable Biblical scholar than I am to argue whether Mosaic Law - which seems pretty damn close to the Hammurabi Code to me - was "impossible". Pretty rough I'll agree, but not much rougher than sharia today, for instance.INRE Fourth Context: Yeah, I've heard that before. Seems to be pretty standard among some Protestant sects at least. I'm not sure the Catholic Church sees it that way.INRE Fifth Context: I think you've just passed beyond my ability to make sense of mythology. This seems too convoluted even for theology. Are you saying Jesus - in the context of coming "not to overturn, but fulfill the law" - is saying (or in any event Matthew is claiming Jesus said) something to the effect, "Look. Nobody can actually follow these laws, so your only chance for salvation is to follow me"? Bizarre. No wonder some people claim the Bible should have been more explicit as to what it was talking about. In any case, it's still seems debatable that vs. 37, especially taken alone out of the context of the rest of the passage, means what you claim it means. Well, yeah, basically. If your contention is true - that the Bible means what it says - isn't the obverse also required? I.e., that the Bible must say what it means without leaving things open to a bunch of non-divinely-inspired yokels to interpret thousands of years after the fact? Seems almost self-defeating to me. No idea. Why wouldn't it say what it means? Wow. All I can respond to this is to repeat the question I asked: If it means what it says, why doesn't it say what it means??? Well, actually, I'm not the one "interpreting" here. I'm simply going by what the text says, or in this case doesn't say. You're the one that talks about allegory and symbolism in the Bible, except when it isn't. Which is which when is not immediately obvious and appears to be open to significant interpretation. Your interpretation or that of those you agree with.As to burden of proof - I've made no claims regarding Biblical inerrancy either way. Thus I don't have to "prove" anything here. I'm certainly willing to challenge the interpretation of some of the things in the Bible when they conflict with reality. Other than that, I'm willing to accept apologists who claim that the areas where the Bible conflicts with nature are intended as allegory, or symbolism, or whatever. It's their belief system, after all. I guess they can rationalize it any way that makes sense to them. This is probably the most interesting bit in your post. The interpretation (or the individual who's making the interpretation) you choose to accept is based on a totally subjective, emotive (i.e., non-rational) feeling on your (or the individual believer's) part? Doesn't this throw out any pretense that there's some objective reason to accept inerrancy? You have "faith" that someone's interpretation - in your case Dr. Scott - about the Bible is the right one, simply because it feels right to you? Doesn't this mean that literally any conceivable interpretation of any passage in the Bible is acceptable simply because it feels right to the believer? I certainly never did that. You might want to look up one of our old threads. Maybe re-open one or start a new one? This particular thread is supposed to be non-science...

Hopefully I'm understanding what you are looking for in this thread.
Unfortunately I don't have anything for the positive.One verse, Jeremiah 8:8, shows the possiblity of errors as opposed to no errors.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

Since, as you say, there are no specific verses that require literally interpretations of scripture, then all of the Bible is not literally true. Some of it could be be literally true while other parts of it would be symbolically or allegorically true. The author in one part scripture could intend to write an allegory and then deal in symbolism later on or even use symbolism in his allegory. These passages can be true when these intentions are known. So the Bible is inerrant as long as you account for these other kinds of truth, right?The story of Noah was mentioned earlier in this thread. If you have the time could you undertake using those passages as an example of when statements are literal, symbolic and allegory?thanx
PM1K

I skimmed the thread and I haven't seen this emphasized yet.The authors of the Bible, whoever they were, did not realize they were writing for a divine anthology. They were just writing what they believed to be divinely inspired Scripture. Keep in mind that it was man who compiled the Bible and deemed it a holy book. The stories/letters/accounts were not written with the conscious intent of being compiled with eachother.
As such, nowhere in the Bible will you find the words 'all stories in this book are factual'.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit. http://www.BadPreacher.5u.com (incomplete, but look anyway!)

God knows everything.Authors of the bible were inspired by god.Therefore, authors of the bible must have known of god's intention.

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He's not dead. He's electroencephalographically challenged.

no, nor will you in paradise lost, hamlet, jurassic park, the lord of the ring trilogy, flavius josephus, or my high school history textbook. no one ever writes "no really kids, this happened. i swear"except for movies, sometimes, which say "based on a true story." and then you have to be skeptical of how much they changed. the last good example i saw was "the texas chainsaw massacre" which said "inspired by true events." in reality, the story was inspired by ed gein, who niether lived in texas nor owned a chainsaw.what you have to do is understand it in the context of who wrote it. were they reading it as fact? was it compiled to be factual? does it have other motivations, such as politics? and LEAST importantly, did the person writing it think it was fact?the evidence we have of the bible, IN the bible, is that it was compiled without regard to factuality. genesis in particular seems to be a melting pot of different traditions which are often in clear contradiction of one another (see the gen1 v gen2 thread). this indicates that multiple traditions were written or passed down, became holy, and were included without change under a redactor. it is very unlikely that a single author would write the book in multiple styles which contradict each other.however, the inclusion indicates that the redactor cared more about the holiness tradition than consistency or factuality. when there's a contradiction, one HAS to be wrong. yet it's in the bible anyways. even the histories in the bible show other motivation, especially in politics and foreign relations.the point is that the only educated way of reading the bible is that people, plural, that wrote and editted it had other things on their mind than accuracy and factuality. i would go more in depth as to why, with examples, but it'd end up being a huge essay.

book, chapter, verse?here's a verse from earlier in the chapter. let's see how jesus thinks of bible.

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Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

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ignore for a second what he's actually saying, and look at how he says it: the law (torah) and the prophets (nevi'im). assuming his table of contents looks something like mine, he's leaving out a whole third of the old testament: writings (ketuvim).in other words, by omission, jesus is saying the following books aren't the holy eternal word of god:psalms
proverbs
job
song of songs [solomon]
ruth
lamentations
ecclesiastes
esther
daniel
ezra
nehemiah
chroniclesjesus makes numerous references to the law and the prophets, matthew: 7:12, 11:13, 22:40, Luke: 16:16.the only time he ever mentions another book in conjunction with it is the psalms, in luke 24:44. are we reading different books again?under mosaic law, the punishment for sin is sacrificing a bull. at least that's what it says in exodus and leviticus last time i read them, which was about a month ago. there have been a few occasions of god punishing a man for sinning with instant death, and adam was not one of them. it is absolutely wrong to say that god punishes us for adam's sin. he didn't even punish adam in the way he said he would.further, there have been people the bible calls perfect.

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1Ki 15:14 But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the LORD all his days.

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that doesn't sound tainted by original sin, let alone his failure to fulfill god's will (his own sin). i'm sure you can find similar statements about david and solomon if you look. and what about enoch? he didn't even die, god just took him up to heaven. and elijah?the statement that god condemned all of mankind in the old testament is just plain wrong. the picture painted is of a very forgiving god, unless you do something to REALLY piss him off (divide the church, worship idols, let the people worship idols, etc). ok, NOW pay attention to what this verse says:

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Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

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couple of problems with that. jesus was not made in the image of the thing afflicting the people. what we have in numbers is fiery serpents, and moses makes a fake one and attaches it to a pole. btw, the fiery bit is the word "seraph" as in "seraphim." it indicates that these snakes were not of natural world, but thing that moses made was. this is the REVERSE of the christ story.and it has nothing to do with satan. satan tests faith, it's his job. these were sent, according to numbers 21, by god. there's textual evidence that the people who complied the bible didn't care about factuality and contradictions. there's also evidence that they borrowed and often MADE FUN OF other culture's stories. and there evidence for political motivation in what it chooses to record or not record, and how. we have an assyrian picture of king jehu of israel kissing the feet of shalmanessar the 3rd, after losing to him in battle. where's that verse in the bible? we have a president who lies to us. we've ALWAYS had presidents who lie to us. why on earth would they do it? there are political reasons at work here, just as in the bible. read it a bit more closely. the bible. the fact that it is inconsistent, innaccurate, influenced by the texts of the surrounding nations, and generally written with other purposes in mind. what is your basis for interpretting it literally, and how to do you justify the places that it doesn't line up, and appears to be a hodge-podge of multiple conflicting traditions? alright, listen closely.i'm speaking for god right now. he has ordained me as his divine prophet. do you believe me? why or why not?OF COURSE i'll say that. does it mean anything when i say it? why would it mean anything when paul says it, especially if i've quoted jesus more times in this post than paul did in his letters? he contradicts the teachings of christ.above, christ said that he didn't come change the law. paul said he did. who's right? paul or jesus? does this validate or invalidate paul's appraisal of himself as divinely inspired? yes, and i appear to read more closely and more analytically than fundamentalist christians, as this post should be proof of.

So you're saying that the doctrine of inerrancy isn't Biblical ?

i dunno, but i am.