Summations Only

Did Paul actually tell the story differently on separate occasions? As jar has pointed out, Luke and Acts are not a first hand accounts.But more crucially, we seem to agree on at least one route for errors to get into the Bible. Clearly at least one of Paul or Luke did err and the Bible contains their errors stated exactly as if those errors are the truth. I'm actually becoming embarrassed about my participation in this thread. You've already admitted that dismissing superstition is improper, so what do I hope to accomplish with a lecture about inductive reasoning. Nonetheless, getting details wrong is generally not evidence of truth even if it does not indicate lying. We don't say such things about, say testimony in front of the Ferguson grand jury, so why should we say it here? If we are to find truth in such stories, it must be found despite, and not because of, the discrepancies.

I see no contradictions in the different accounts.

I only said you were quitting in the middle because you continue posting but not saying anything relevant or constructive. Maybe you're really done but don't know it. Wasn't Muhammad's splitting of the moon a miracle "on a scale and with a power" only Allah could accomplish?But in the real world there does not appear to be any such thing as miracles or the supernatural, and you have no evidence that any of the miracles of Christianity or any other religion ever really happened. If you want to convince anyone that Christianity is the one true religion because of the extraordinary nature of its miracles then the first step would be to demonstrate that there is such a thing as miracles. Once you've shown that miracles are an actual phenomena of the real world then you can move on to provide evidence that the Biblical miracles really happened.The problem with your approach is that instead of answering people's questions by providing evidence you attempt to convert them so they stop asking questions.Concerning the topic, we have plenty of internal and external evidence that the Bible contains errors and inconsistencies, and that it was written by men.--Percy

There's a set of old jokes highlighting the respective failings of the way mathematicians, physicists and engineers think, and one of them is about the weakness engineers sometimes have of blindly applying the same approach. It goes like this: You're the same as the engineer. Declaring "No problems exist" to every Biblical error and contradiction regardless of the particulars is just blindly applying the same formula whether it fits or not. You then eventually refuse to discuss the reasons, probably because thinking up reasons for things like how two and seven are the same becomes a bit wearying after a while.--Percy

Does Acts 9:7 say:

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7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

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Does Acts 22:9 say:

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9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

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It is obvious that any book known is and was written by men. The question we are left with,in my mind, is the motives and passions of such men. Additionally, it has been tentatively proven that the Bible has inconsistencies---but how would we determine errors? We would need to have a "truth" to compare them with.This brings up the worldviews concerning truth--what truth is and isnt.

Is truth alive? Jesus once told Pilate that He represented the definition of truth.

Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the worldto bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

In the context of spirituality, is truth eternal? Unchanging? Orthodox? Or does truth come from the ever evolving minds of men?

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Have any teachings been found which supercede the teachings that humans glean from Bible Studies? Can anyone present evidence of such newer teachings so that we may discuss them?

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Words are "a sound or combination of sounds that has a meaning and is spoken or written". Did words exist before humans evolved enough to utter them? Where did these words come from?

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Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

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Saying, "I don't know," is the same as saying, "Maybe."~ZombieRingo
It's easy to see the speck in somebody else's ideas - unless it's blocked by the beam in your own.~Ringo
If a savage stops believing in his wooden god, it does not mean that there is no God only that God is not wooden.(Leo Tolstoy)

"Truth" is not a very important aspect in most cases. Reality and facts are. What is needed is not "Truth" as a comparison but rather facts and reality.We determine errors many ways. One is to compare and contrast as I did in Message 1880. Here are two mutually exclusive statements from the same document. I know of no way to tell whether either is true but since they are mutually exclusive then at least one if not both must be false. Well, no he did not. Read what you quoted. There Jesus only claims to act as a witness but it says nothing about what is true or false. Too funny. Are Crystal Pyramids in vogue this week or is it Dancing naked in the Oak Groves? When it comes to spirituality one thing is abundantly evidenced and that is truth constantly changes. Of course. There is the Eight Fold Path, the writings of Confucius and Mencius, the Vedas. the ... Of course words did not exist before they were invented. Words are created by men.

Isn't the question, at least for this thread, whether they were inspired by God? So that what they wrote could be considered the Word of God?So where would you look for evidence that the Biblical authors were inspired by God? I think the starting point would be to characterize in detail what being inspired by God looks like. You would seek out people who we know are inspired by God today and study the effects this inspiration has. You would then look to the words written by the Biblical authors and see what evidence can be found of this inspiration.Short of that you're not really making an evidence-based case, you're attempting conversions.If the Bible is indeed the Word of God then there's one thing we can say for sure about the effects of writing while inspired by God: it doesn't cause inerrancy.--Percy

Yes, I didn't notice that at first but it's exactly the sort of discrepancy that is either the result of Paul's not knowing exactly what the other men experienced or forgetting it, which is not of any importance to the main message, or more likely he's saying in Acts 9 that they heard an undecipherable voice, and in Acts 22 that they didn't know what the voice said, which would be the same thing. The way I may hear voices outside my door in the walkway but not be able to make out what they are saying. You will of course insist on your reading and I on mine and there's no point in discussing it further.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But the Bible does not say what you claim it might say.Does Acts 9:7 say:

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7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

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Does Acts 22:9 say:

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9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

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First, regardless of whether or not either version is true, it is conclusive evidence that the Bible is not Inerrant.But remember that Paul is not saying anything in Acts. Acts is some author or authors writing dialog for the characters in the stories. And neither story shows any resemblance to the stories Paul wrote in First Corinthians or in Galatians as I point out in Message 1867.The obvious conclusion is that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God and unless you can offer convincing evidence to refute that conclusion the case is pretty much closed.

Not only puny little demonic miracles but totally made-up miracles that nobody witnessed but the person who claimed they happened. As opposed to God-sized miracles witnessed by many or by someone known for his many miracles such as Elijah or Elisha.What you mean by the "real world" is just what you personally have experienced. Some people have experienced miracles but you won't believe them because you haven't. But the miracles of the Bible were specifically given to prove that God is God, that's why they are there, so if you insist that they must be normal occurrences or you won't believe them you will of course miss the whole point.I don't see errors and inconsistencies, sorry. I see small discrepancies that rather tend to prove the honesty of the reports if they are really discrepancies, but most likely don't mean what the debunkers insist they mean anyway, such as the two and the seven which isn't a discrepancy at all; and otherwise I see accounts that are trustworthy testimonies to the realities of God.We are told to do two things: repent and believe. God didn't make it easy for people of a certain turn of mind to believe, did He?

You have sa very silly idea of what "inerrant" means. It just means that we can trust it to tell us the truth about God, and only the originals are considered to be perfectly inerrant anyway.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Luke wrote Acts and Luke traveled with Paul and none of the accounts contradicts any of the others. And the Bible authors do not make things up or tell lies. As God will no doubt inform you on Judgment Day.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Unless you have an argument that the inconsistencies are really nothing of the kind, then we have multiple accounts with at least one wrong statement which cannot be assigned. It is true that we cannot decide which is correct without a gold standard.But is assigning the error really important?As to whether the errors are any consequence, we may well agree that the error is of no consequence; at least until you make the claim that the Bible is literally inerrant. You are either the greatest mage I've ever encountered, or you are full of nonsense. I cannot make much sense out of about three fourths of what you post anymore. And you never respond to my requests for clarification. I don't think I'm going to bother with your posts anymore.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Well no, that is NOT what inerrant means and we have no originals and I covered the CSBI nonsense that is Biblical Inerrancy in Message 1872.Item 4 of that silly document says:

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4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

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The stories of Paul's experience on the road to Damascus could only be God-given if the god is one that can't keep facts straight and makes up embellishments over time.The two accounts that Paul most likely wrote show NO resemblance to the fanciful stories found in Acts.AbE:The CSBI is a great example of the basic dishonesty of Biblical Christianity. A bunch of the leading lights of the Christian Cult of Ignorance flew into Chicago to sign a statement of faith. There was no attempt to determine truth or even accuracy. There was no presentation of evidence that might refute the position, just a great example of confirmation bias in action.Edited by jar, : see AbE