The Bible: Is the Author God, Man or Both?

I was having a conversation with Jazzns in another thread but as I had already been chastised for going off topic in that thread I didn’t want it to happen again. I thought that maybe a thread on the topic would be useful.Jazzns had written this. This was my response: Christianity is a faith. It isn’t evidence based in the way that science is which of course does not prove anything about it one way or another. To start with I’d like to make a quick case to provide a rational for coming to a conclusion about the theistic position.Firstly I contend that it is more plausible to believe that human intelligence and morality are more likely to have evolved from an intelligent moral first cause than from mindless particles without even considering the question of a first cause for the existence of particles.On the assumption then that we have evolved from an intelligent moral first cause then it is more plausible to assume an ongoing interest and interaction by that pre-existing intelligence than not.I like to discuss the Bible accepting that the theistic position is correct, that is God (the intelligent moral first cause) exists, and does continue to interact with His creation.We exist as creatures with the ability to reason. We have a sense of beauty and ugliness, fear and courage, love and hate, right and wrong, good and evil etc. We have enquiring minds with a sense of imagination. It is my belief that God connects with us through human imagination and in one sense, through the choices that we make, we connect with Him.With this in mind I want to consider the Bible.Creationists or fundamentalists talk about the Bible as being inspired by God. I’m fine by that but what does it mean?From the online Oxford dictionary:

quote:

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1 [mass noun] the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative:
Helen had one of her flashes of inspiration
the Malvern Hills have provided inspiration for many artists
the quality of being inspired:
a rare moment of inspiration in an otherwise dull display
[count noun] a person or thing that inspires:
he is an inspiration to everyone
divine influence, especially that supposed to have led to the writing of the Bible.
2a sudden brilliant or timely idea:
then I had an inspiration

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So yes, I have no problem in agreeing that the Biblical authors were inspired to write what it was that they wrote, but that does not mean that they wrote without their personal and cultural conditioning impacting their efforts. It does not mean that God gave them word for word dictation. It does not mean that they always got it exactly right or does it not mean that didn’t get it exactly wrong.My discussion point centres on the reply that I gave to Jazzns in the quote above. I believe that if we take the Bible as a collection of historical texts written by men with all of their personal and cultural biases that we can get a much clearer picture of the nature of God and of His creation, than if we attempt to understand the Bible as a book authored by God Himself. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

OK. I've changed the title and made a couple of other small changes as well in hopes of making it clearer.Incidentally, I hardly see the position as being unique.I'm fine with Bible Study.Thanks

I'm fine with all of that but I think we have to go further. It is written by men that were to the best of their understanding writing about the role God played in their own lives and in the life of their community. As I said I believe that God does connect with us through human imagination and sometimes they would have gotten it right and sometimes not so much.I believe that the Gospels are written to be understood as completely historical in terms of what happened to Jesus and what He said. That does not mean that what they wrote isn't influenced by their own understanding, but I believe that they completely believed what they wrote. We can make up our own minds as to whether they were correct or not.I also think that the Bible is a tool that is used by an engaged God to speak again through human imagination. It is my belief though that when we understand the Bible to be the inerrant Word of God then we will come away with a distorted view of the nature of God as well as a distorted view of His relationship with His creation.

It seems to me that sub-consciously much of North American fundamentalism understand that the Bible is written by men, but that the idea that is the Word of God implies that it is inerrant. With this as the starting point then when obvious contradictions are pointed out the answer is that if we had greater knowledge we would understand what is written and there would be no contradiction. Either that or the meaning is twisted around so it says something that isn't there, and was never intended by the author to be there.As has been pointed out in numerous threads the god of the OT is very different in many instances as the God that we see incarnate in Jesus in the NT. In the Gospels Jesus, as recorded by the author of Matthew, points out where the OT authors got it wrong.As I've said befrore, Christianity is supposed to be about the worship of God as embodied by Jesus, not about the worship of the Bible.

I'm sorry Jazzns. When I copied it out I just quickly looked at it and thought it was a typo. I've changed it.

The differences between Matthew and Luke are in the details not the primary point which is the resurrection of Jesus.In what way did their beliefs lack a rational foundation? The sense is that the authors, likely based on previously written source material, are saying that although this sounds incredible this is what was observed. They were aware that this event was something well out of the ordinary.In the OP I tried to present a brief rationale for a theistic deity. On the basis that we accept a creative intelligence that remains engaged then the idea of what we call miraculous is rational. Certainly the Gospel writers believed in a interventionist deity.

Who has the definitive answer to the question? Which evangelical Christians have it right and which ones don't? Well, I would say "both" as well, however I'm not sure that we would agree on how that works. I might say that Beethoven was inspired write beautiful music. I'd say that inspiration is a gift of God so in one sense God inspired Beethoven to write that music. There were authors and scribes who were inspired to record their experiences, histories and concepts of God. As a result of that we have the Biblical account of God working through imperfect human imagination gradually bringing a clearer picture of Himself into focus right up to the time of Jesus and shortly afterwards.None of that is to say that they got it right but we can sort a great deal of it out by looking at what is recorded of the teachings of Jesus and using that as a lens to sort out the truth of what had been written earlier.I have no doubt that the Gospels do not have what Jesus said word for word but I believe that they have accurately recorded the intent of what Jesus actually said. In the epistles we obviously have the exact words of the authors and at least in the case of Paul we have material that was written from someone who was a contemporary of, and in contact with, the apostles.

Why not? It is part of the record of God's revelation to mankind. It doesn't in anyway preclude Him from working in the hearts, minds and imaginations of people today.

Somebody, presumably Moses came up with the 10 commandments. Was that a revelation from God?The idea of what is in the 10 commandments came from somewhere. Did God directly influence his thinking or is the statements something that is a possibility in anyone of us? They do appear to go in a very different direction than the beliefs of other societies at that time. Personally I believe that God does connect with us through our thoughts but that is just my belief and there is no way to know whether I am right or wrong. Not really. It is about understanding the authorship of the scriptures. If God does connect with us through our hearts and minds then we have to consider the possibility that the writers were influenced by God in what they wrote.

If you want to look at it that way I'd say yes. Yes, the Gospels were written decades after the time of the crucifixion and yes there would have been errors in the historical aspects of who was where and when for example. However they all agree on the one crucial occurrence which is the resurrection itself. They all agree that Jesus, after suffering physical death returned in a resurrected physical body. That is something that it is pretty hard to be unintentionally wrong about.Another thing is this, after being witnesses of Jesus resurrection, the thing that they would have been very careful about is to quote Jesus as closely as possible. They may have had some written record of what He had said while He was alive and they may not have. We have no way of knowing but they would have been careful to be as accurate as possible whether there had been pre-resurrection records of what Jesus had said. He spoke in the Temple and in the Synagogues so there very well might have been some records kept either formally or informally prior to the crucifixion.However, I do believe that through the NT we can achieve a picture of the true character of God. I don't accept that he lied about it. He simply recorded what Jesus said while understanding that this would tie Jesus to the Hebrew Scriptures. It is my view that it was Jesus who was making the case that He was the Messiah, and Matthew recorded it, although likely by making sure that He included as many of the quotes of Jesus that would be understood by his Jewish audience. In other words I'm saying that he accurately recorded the actions and words of Jesus with an emphasis on the actions and words that would explain Jesus' messiahship. I just don't accept that. For one thing, the idea that this would give them some kind of authority doesn't hold water. The followers of Jesus were a small and persecuted minority. There was no authority attached to what they were doing, they were only buying themselves trouble. I think that the Gospels have been misused and taken out of context in order to subjugate women. I know Paul wrote about women being silent in church but also in but also in several cases he was quite happy to have women in positions of authority in the church. Here is a link to a written record of a talk given by N T Wright on the subject. Women in Service in the Church. I have great respect for the theology and the scholarship of N T Wright and have read most of what he has written. I just don't accept that as being the case. I believe that the Biblical writers, (with the possible exception of some of the OT writers that may well have written things that would bring them favour with those who had the power of life and death over them), wrote what they believed to be the truth. Well in the first place there is a general consensus that The Gospel of Peter was written until about the end of the 2nd century AD. Also the whole book is written in exactly the manner you would expect if it was being made up to fit in with Jewish apocryphal expectations. Certainly docetism would have been the common explanation given by those who wouldn’t accept the accounts of those that did actually witness the events. It still holds true today. There were other Jewish movements that didn't involve Jesus such as the Essenes but as far as I know there were no Christian movements that weren't based on the resurrection. Can you give me an example? I have no idea what their motivations were and if you respect what they wrote as being the truth then feel free to worship Prometheus. You may find it lonely in your church. The mythological accounts are written quite differently. The NT accounts are written by people who either purport to be eyewitnesses or who have been informed by those who were. In addition they would have been read by people who were alive at the time that they talk about. Other than the exception I mentioned earlier in this quote regarding the authors of parts of the OT, I don’t accept that they were lying at all. I believe they recorded what they wrote what they believe to be true.

Well obviously, we have come to different conclusions about that. Which divergent parts of the stories are you referring to? Josephus is considered an historian of that era. If you found that he had made an error in some of the details of what he wrote would you just discard his whole body of work? I do believe in the historical accuracy of the Gospels even if with errors in the details. I think that it is reasonable to critique them as historical documents and you can accept or reject their degree of veracity.

I didn't say he did. The two Biblical accounts are very close and obviously from the same source. The idea of not coveting is a heart thing which I know of no precedent for. As I understand the scriptures monotheism was something that evolved over time. I'm far from an expert but it seems to me that it started out with the idea that their god was stronger that the gods of their enemies and would do the best job of protecting them. Somewhere along the line their understanding evolved to the belief that there is but one god.I still maintain that the 10 commandments are a pretty severe departure from the beliefs of their pagan neighbours. I'm not saying that God carved the 10 commandments into the stone tablets, I'm just suggesting that God inspired the heart and mind of Moses, (or whoever it was), to a greater understanding of the character of God and what it was He desired of His people.I go back to what I wrote in the OP. If we accept the theistic belief in an intelligent first cause, then the divine guidance of human inspiration is neither surprising nor unexpected.

I would agree that it an open question as to whether or not Paul directly wrote those letters. They may have been written by other authors from other material from Paul, from listening to Paul or just from understanding what Paul taught and replicating it as best they could.

It is a very long way from practically everything. Luke says that Joseph took his family to Bethlehem because of a census. Matthew just said that He was born in Bethlehem with no explanation. Where's the conflict.What are you basing the 10 years on?Frankly even if there is a conflict so what? Details around the birth of Jesus likely would have varied by the time the Gospels were written. Actually we don't know what Josephus' sources were. Yes we know his biases, but even knowing his biases isn't going to give us certainty about where his biases caused him to get it wrong. I agree that the Gospels can't be verified from non-Biblical sources. However they were written by 4 different authors with the epistles supporting the resurrection and the message. Once again, I don't agree that the details that vary make any real difference unless you are trying to prove that God dictated it word for word. That is an opinion. You have yours and I have mine. I agree that I can't say that the Gospel writers definitely had good sources, but you can't say that they didn't. The Gospels were written some time after the resurrection so it isn't surprising that there are differences in the details. Frankly if there weren't differences I think that there would be a great deal more reason to be suspicious.

Of course it's a "heart thing". You can't command someone not to covet, and you can't make a decision not to covet. It is a heart thing when you can find joy in what someone else has even when you don't have it yourself. I would say yes, but once again I don't see it as God informing Moses directly, (although I suppose it is possible but frankly I don't see that it makes any difference one way or the other), but just by planting an idea in his mind or speaking through to his imagination in what was likely non-specific ideas.IMHO as a Christian, my understanding of what God is doing is that by working through the hearts and minds of His created beings He will bring about a world where unselfish love demonstrated in forgiveness, mercy, kindness and perfect justice is the norm. All evolutionary processes have to start somehow and somewhere. I see the 10 commandments as one of the early steps along that revolutionary path.