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

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.

Still lost me. Yet you also said : If it is just another example of man's understanding and beliefs it is not God's revelation.Of course it does not preclude God from working in the hearts, minds and imagination of people today, but that is totally irrelevant to the topic.

I am not claiming that they should be rejected because they were culturally conditioned. I am claiming that if you truly mean we should take the writings in context, that we need to recognize the conflicting or erroneous motivations of the writers. This information gives us incredibly valuable insight as to the truth claims that these people make and the reliability of their understanding of god. It seems very much like you want us to treat the NT as an imperfect picture that nevertheless still reveals the character of god. Is that a good characterization of your position? And so what should we think of his failure to connect Jesus to the OT? Why was he so motivated to make things up to convince Jews that Jesus really was the messiah? How is the character of god revealed in Matthew's willingness to lie to Jews about their own scripture? Its more than just that they had an agenda. Its the issue that they are lying about who they are in order to gain perceived authority.We can go further. We can say that what they wrote does make them wrong. They explicitly recast women back into subjugation. That IS wrong. Where is the character of god in these people's motivation? They falsely take Paul's name in order to say thing that have kept women as a depressed majority in our culture for the next 2000 years. They are liars and power mongers. How are we supposed to be informed by them in their TRUE context? And so how should we use our intelligence and enquiring minds and morality to treat the writings of liars and forgers? I think we should use our intelligence and morality to reject from the marketplace of ideas anything that so blatantly perjures itself. Well that is very interesting because although it might be a constant in the NT, it is NOT a constant thing about the diversity of the early writings about Jesus. The physical resurrection was a point of deep dispute AMONG CHRISTIANS in the early church. You have forever lost gospels as a result of the dystopian information suppression campaign of the early church. Docetism is present in many commentaries
that do survive. Fervor against the docetic position is the likely cause for the loss of the majority of the Gospel of Peter.Yet directly against your point, there was a variety of rather strong Christian derived movements that got off the ground WITHOUT what you claim is required for plausibility. It is in fact the outcome of this war among early Christians that hardened the doctrine of the physical resurrection. And do you not feel in any way that that may just be a deficiency of your own imagination? What do you think were the motivations of the people who wrote down the story of Prometheus?That may even be beside the point. Who cares if they believed it is true? How is that any support for it actually BEING true? How do the beliefs of these people inform us about the truth of god?That is the ultimate question with respect to inspiration isn't it? If the books aren't actually divinely directed, explain one way that they are any different from the giant pile of discarded mythology right next to them? To sum up my challenge, I feel that you are glossing over significant deficiencies by referring to them as "personal and cultural biases." Lying is not a bias. It is not an acceptable form of discourse in any cultural communication that is worth having a debate about.

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The differences between Matthew and Luke are in the details not the primary point which is the resurrection of Jesus.

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Of course the differences are too marked to be so lightly dismissed. Especially given the amount of copied material found in those two Gospels.

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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.

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If they can hardly be expected to get anything right - as you insist - how can they have a rational foundation for much of the text ? What foundation could they have for their divergent Nativity stories, for instance ?Let me ask my question again. If the Gospel stories cannot be trusted as history - as you clearly agree in your attempts to sweep the discrepancies under the carpet - then it seems obvious that any intention God might have had for them did not include historical accuracy. In that case surely you would be wrong to say the the Gospels are correctly understood as histories, since God's purpose for them - if there is one - must be something else.

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.

Moses, if there ever was a Moses, is unlikely to have had anything to do with the authorship of any of the Books of Moses.The Ten Commandments (whichever version you want to discuss) almost certainly are not a revelation from God. The fact that there are several different versions is pretty clear indication that they are just mythos.They also aren't that unusual for the most part, and not even monotheistic; rather they are very tribalistic in nature. Shouldn't we also consider the possibility that Reverend Dodgson was influenced by God in what he wrote, or Mark Twain, or Kipling or Dawkins?Why does God connecting directly to us involve anything to do with the authorship of any of the various Biblical and extra-Biblical stories?

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 have a more general reply in mind but I want to clear up a couple of points to ground us.Do you or do you not accept that Paul is likely NOT the author of:Colossians
Ephesians
Hebrews
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
TitusOr for that matter, textual variants such as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35?

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Well obviously, we have come to different conclusions about that.

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I don't know about that. Going to the point of declaring practically everything in the Gospels as mere "details" that you expect to be wrong would seem a pretty drastic step.

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Which divergent parts of the stories are you referring to?

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Shall we start with the hugely different Nativity stories ? Set about ten years apart with completely different explanations for Joseph and Mary being in Bethlehem and Nazareth it seems pretty clear that at least one of the authors had no real knowledge of the actual events. In fact it looks to me as if they knew the names of Jesus' parents, that Jesus grew up in Nazareth and that they wanted to have him born in Bethlehem - and nothing else.

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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?

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Of course not. I wouldn't start pretending that points important to Josephus were mere details, throwing out most of his work either.But with Josephus we have a good idea of who he was, and his sources and his biases. I would for instance, throw out much of what he wrote about Moses because we know that it is very unlikely that he had good sources and because of his religious bias. On the other hand he was one of the leaders of the Jewish revolt, so his writing on that can be considered more reliable - once we subtract his own pro-Roman, pro-Jewish and especially pro-Josephus biases.Now we don't know who the Gospel writers were, all we know of their agenda and sources (save for Matthew and Luke's use of Mark) is what we can reconstruct from the Gospel texts - itself a very uncertain exercise and one that can tell us very little about the reliability or provenance of those sources. The differences are quite large and require us to consider that the accounts are quite inaccurate even when dealing with important events that a participant would have got right - not mere inconsequential details.Josephus is reliable when he has good sources and where his biases don't come into play. But there is nowhere that we can say that the Gospel writers definitely had good sources and almost nowhere where their bias does not come into play.

Not coveting is not so much a 'heart thing' as it was a practical rule to minimize conflict in small closely related tribal groups.I thought you said "Somebody, presumably Moses came up with the 10 commandments. Was that a revelation from God? "

surely God has to commune with humans in some way. He is fully able to pay us some mind. To suggest that He does not is basically killing Christianity as a religion and as a philosophy.

Which is still unrelated and irrelevant to the topic.The question is about the author of the loosely called 'Bible" and so far all the evidence I have ever seen shows that it is totally the product of man.