Is the Bible the Word of God?

Hi, Wasting! Hope posting here works for you this time around.

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It is the divinely inspired work of men. God didn't personally write the scriptures, men did. The Bible remains the Word of God.

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Is this an evidentiary position or an article of faith? If faith, fine, no problem. But otherwise there are many undefined areas that need to be addressed. What is the definition of God? What does it mean to be divinely inspired? How do we know who wrote while divinely inspired and who did not? Does one write inerrantly while divinely inspired?The main question is whether faith can be source of both inspiration and information.--PercyPS - This is a reply to Message 7318 at the Yahoo Evolution versus Creationism Club.

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[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 02-25-2001).]

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 12-10-2001]

It's purely a matter of faith. One cannot prove the existance of God scientifically, at least not that I know of.

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It's purely a matter of faith. One cannot prove the existance of God scientifically, at least not that I know of.

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I understand about the existence of God, but I'm more curious how one concludes which writing is divinely inspired. For example, what criteria were used to decide which books belonged in the Bible?--Percy

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 12-10-2001]

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Originally posted by Percipient:
I understand about the existence of God, but I'm more curious how one concludes which writing is divinely inspired. For example, what criteria were used to decide which books belonged in the Bible?

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--Percy

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Books were selectively chosen, of this there is little doubt. Even now, some faiths include the Apocrypha or the book of Mormon. The Church created the New Testament in the 4th Century. Might I suggest the following link? http://www.geocities.com/christianbiblestudy/Exegesis/inerrancy.htm

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Originally posted by Falsecut:
Books were selectively chosen, of this there is little doubt. Even now, some faiths include the Apocrypha or the book of Mormon. The Church created the New Testament in the 4th Century. Might I suggest the following link? http://www.geocities.com/christianbiblestudy/Exegesis/inerrancy.htm

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Yes, Bible inerrancy was developed as a Protestant argument against the Roman Church's appeal to extrabiblical authority, as the article at the link says. The author claims that this fact of "Theology" or theological argument undoes the claim to biblical inerrancy.The author says: "The Bible does not present itself as infallible or inerrant, but Christians have made these claims in order to advance their own interpretations of scripture." Tendentious insinuating claim here. The charitable view, and I believe the true one, is that the whole Protestant revolt was based on the recognition that the Bible was the only true authority as over against the corruptible traditional and human authorities of the Roman Church.That is, they honestly intellectually and spiritually discerned the scripture to be claiming its own inspiration from God, though this author may be unhumbly incapable of that discernment himself and prefers to insinuate less worthy political motives in place of their judgment.Inerrancy is not successfully challenged by "History" either: history shows at least that SOME biblical books were universally accepted as canonical, and the disputes about the others are not going to be resolved by the mere fact that there were disputes. One position may after all be the correct one. That there is some confusion only shows that people differ in degree of their own inspiration and ability to judge, it doesn't prove the position wrong that argues for the inerrancy of the current Protestant canon.As I understand the selection of the canon in the early centuries of the church, it was based upon the usage of the churches themselves which judged them as inspired or not, rather than politically determined. Paul may have been unpopular in some churches, but was revered as inspired by the great majority."Translation" is hardly a challenge to the idea of inerrancy: you simply put the ideas into another language. The ideas are the same. Though nuances can be lost in translation, the main meaning of the text is clear enough, and even the nuances can be reclaimed through good researched preaching. If the text is not as true as it should be, then there are plenty of old manuscripts in a multiplicity of languages available by which to correct it.The need for interpretation should not count as a challenge to the text itself, as the article says the various "Confessions" suggest it should. Even the Iliad and the Odyssey are subject to interpretation. The only requirement for Biblical integrity is that the text itself be consistent from one edition to another. What it means may always be a question, but what it actually says should not be. In any language it should always SEEM to say a certain recognizable inerrant something over which scholars and theologians then may argue. The interpretation has nothing to do with bibical inerrancy.

The bible was written in over a 1,500 year period with 40 authors in 3 different languages about many controversial topics yet it remains in complete harmony from beginning to end. This is evidence to me that it is the word of God.

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Originally posted by redstang281:
The bible was written in over a 1,500 year period with 40 authors in 3 different languages about many controversial topics yet it remains in complete harmony from beginning to end. This is evidence to me that it is the word of God.

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So you don't see any incongruities in a work that includes "suffer the little children to come unto me..." and God sending bears to eat children for taking the piss out of one of his prophets for being bald?Wake up and smell the coffee mate.....Or even better explain to me what they are both doing in an internaly consistent, divinely inspired document, I could do with a good laugh.....

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[This message has been edited by joz, 12-10-2001]

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Redstang writes:
The bible was written in over a 1,500 year period with 40 authors in 3 different languages about many controversial topics yet it remains in complete harmony from beginning to end. This is evidence to me that it is the word of God.

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This is a simple statement of what you believe. What evidence is there that the Bible is the word of God? How do you square the Bible's internal and external inconsistencies with the view that it's in complete harmony?--Percy

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Originally posted by joz:
So you don't see any incongruities in a work that includes "suffer the little children to come unto me..." and God sending bears to eat children for taking the piss out of one of his prophets for being bald?

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Wake up and smell the coffee mate.....

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Or even better explain to me what they are both doing in an internally consistent, divinely inspired document, I could do with a good laugh.....

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[This message has been edited by joz, 12-10-2001]

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I didn't claim to understand everything in the bible. I don't think anyone can. But if you ask me a specific verse and tell me where it is in the bible I should be able to do some research and let you know the meaning and hopefully help you understand it better.

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[This message has been edited by redstang281, 12-11-2001]

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Originally posted by Percipient:

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Redstang writes:
The bible was written in over a 1,500 year period with 40 authors in 3 different languages about many controversial topics yet it remains in complete harmony from beginning to end. This is evidence to me that it is the word of God.

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This is a simple statement of what you believe. What evidence is there that the Bible is the word of God? How do you square the Bible's internal and external inconsistencies with the view that it's in complete harmony?

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--Percy

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Further proof that it is the word of good is in it's prophecies. The prophecies in the bible have come true in minute detail 100%. When I said harmony I meant that it appears as if it was written by the same person throughout the entire book.

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[This message has been edited by redstang281, 12-11-2001]

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 12-11-2001]

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Redstang writes:
Further proof that it is the word of good is in it's prophecies. The prophecies in the bible have come true in minute detail 100%. When I said harmony I meant that it appears as if it was written by the same person throughout the entire book.

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This raises a few questions:

1. How does it follow that if a book contains accurate prophecies that it is in "complete harmony from beginning to end".
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2. How does one determine the accuracy of a prophecy? For example, in Daniel bronze is Assyria, iron is Rome, etc. Such things seem a tenuous base upon which to build so incredible a claim as inerrancy.
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3. Isn't the accuracy of a book only established by going through it step-by-step and determining the veracity of each portion?

--Percy

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Originally posted by redstang281:
I didn't claim to understand everything in the bible. I don't think anyone can. But if you ask me a specific verse and tell me where it is in the bible I should be able to do some research and let you know the meaning and hopefully help you understand it better.

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"suffer the little children..." was JesusThe prophet was either Elijah or Elisha....

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[This message has been edited by joz, 12-11-2001]

"Further proof that it is the word of good is in it's prophecies. The prophecies in the bible have come true in minute detail 100%. When I said harmony I meant that it appears as if it was written by the same person throughout the entire book."You REALLY are going to have to show that the prophesies are genuine. This involves that little understood thing called "empirical evidence" & not belief.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This information was taken from another website.Perhaps the greatest and most obvious testimony to the accuracy of Biblical prophecy is provided by the people and nation of Israel. The Jews went without a homeland for 1900 years, just as God had promised numerous times in the Old Testament2, as a reluctant judgment on His rebellious chosen people. Moses warned Israel that if they corrupted themselves, then "the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other (Deut 28:64, KJV)". Remarkably, this century God restored the Jews to their ancient homeland, fulfilling many other specific Old Testament prophesies3.It is inconceivable to me how the honest skeptic could deny God's handiwork in the history of the people of Israel. Throughout history the "wandering Jew" has been hated and despised, yet despite the unbelievable persecution they endured, the Jews somehow managed to maintain their identity such that when God's timeclock warranted they were able to re-group as a nation in their ancient homeland. Indeed, history is replete with once great nations which were eventually overrun and defeated, but whose people were over time absorbed into the culture of the conquering nation. The fact that this did not happen to the Jews is nothing short of miraculous. There are American Jews, German Jews, Russian Jews, etc.; have you ever heard of a German Babalonian, or an American Philistine? The plight of this small percentage of humanity is certainly unique and unprecedented in the annals of world history

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Originally posted by redstang281:
This information was taken from another website.

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Perhaps the greatest and most obvious testimony to the accuracy of Biblical prophecy is provided by the people and nation of Israel. The Jews went without a homeland for 1900 years, just as God had promised numerous times in the Old Testament2, as a reluctant judgment on His rebellious chosen people. Moses warned Israel that if they corrupted themselves, then "the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other (Deut 28:64, KJV)". Remarkably, this century God restored the Jews to their ancient homeland, fulfilling many other specific Old Testament prophesies3.

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It is inconceivable to me how the honest skeptic could deny God's handiwork in the history of the people of Israel. Throughout history the "wandering Jew" has been hated and despised, yet despite the unbelievable persecution they endured, the Jews somehow managed to maintain their identity such that when God's timeclock warranted they were able to re-group as a nation in their ancient homeland. Indeed, history is replete with once great nations which were eventually overrun and defeated, but whose people were over time absorbed into the culture of the conquering nation. The fact that this did not happen to the Jews is nothing short of miraculous. There are American Jews, German Jews, Russian Jews, etc.; have you ever heard of a German Babalonian, or an American Philistine? The plight of this small percentage of humanity is certainly unique and unprecedented in the annals of world history

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I have a prophesy for you one year a non-white horse will win the grand national....Just because it will come true implys no specific foreknowledge on my part....Any prophesy that is stated in vague enough language as to provide a plenum of solutions is not verified by the occurrence of one of those solutions....Also you have neglected to consider that hatred, religious intolerance and ostrasation all form effective barriers to social integration....