Summations Only

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

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

You mean like the burning bush, witnessed only by Moses? No. The real world is what I'm aware there is evidence for. I've never been to Seattle but I believe it's very much part of real world because of all the evidence I've seen for Seattle. I don't have to experience something to believe it exists. I haven't experienced a triple bypass either, but I believe they exist. You're quibbling over terminology. By definition, anything with discrepancies can't be inerrant. Human psychology makes it incredibly easy for people to believe certain things despite an overwhelming lack of factual support. There especially seems to be an affinity in the human mind for the supernatural.--Percy

If only the originals are inerrant, not the copies, why are you working so hard to prove the copies inerrant?--Percy

If it's only the "TEACHING" that "MATTERS" that's inerrant, why are you defending mere incidentals as inerrant, such as 2 birds versus 7 pair?I don't know that this matters to the discussion, but it bothers me every time "2 versus 7" comes up that the units do not match, 2 birds versus 7 pairs of birds. The comparison should use compatible units. That means it should be either 1 pair versus 7 pair, or 2 birds versus 14 birds. So your argument can't be "2 is part of 7". It should be either "1 is part of 7" or "2 is part of 14".--Percy

Necessary teaching? So you avoid eating unclean animals?Obviously one version is taking clean/unclean into account, and the other isn't. This is because a single story became two similar stories in two different traditions created when an ancient Jewish community split (the exile). One tradition came to develop or emphasize the concept of clean versus unclean and incorporated that into their version of the story, and the other tradition did not. When the two communities recombined (return from exile) their divergent stories were merged into one.But the contradiction remains. In one passage God instructs Noah to bring one pair of birds aboard the ark, in another passage seven pairs. I can't make out what the first part of this means, but you're only being asked to to support your claims with evidence. You first claimed there are no contradictions in the Bible, then you qualified it that there are no contradictions for teachings that matter, then you claimed that even this teaching you don't follow matters, so we not only don't see much evidence, we don't even see much sense.--Percy

That makes no sense. I had never read this passage in the King James version before, so here it is: Most translations say seven pairs and one pair, and the KJV's "by sevens, the male and his female" can only mean seven male/female pairs, but a literal translation of the Hebrew from the NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament, vol. 1 has it this way: "From-every-of the animal the clean you take with you seven seven male and mate—of-him"Seven seven"? Seems like it defies translation, but "number number" (literally a pair of numbers) must have been a colloquial way of saying "pairs". So "three three" would mean three pairs, "twelve twelve" would mean twelve pairs, and so forth.So "seven seven" means seven pairs, not three pairs plus one. You are assuming what you are trying to prove. You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible. You can't assume the Bible is true in order to prove the Bible true. You need external evidence for that.--Percy

You mean that avoiding unclean foods was necessary for Noah, Abraham, Moses and all ancient Jews, but then God changed his mind, but the Jews didn't notice? And this occurred right around the time the founder of your religion arrived on the scene? Interesting. The evidence we have says that the Pentateuch had many authors over a long time period, and that the two accounts in Genesis derived from two similar but divergent traditions by different authors that were later combined into one. There is no evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Well, yes, of course, collecting a number of different books between a single set of covers doesn't mean that independent accounts can't validate each other. But the Bible has precious few independent accounts. It was, as you say, written over a very long period of time, and the authors of the newer books had read the older books. Luke and Matthew were obviously aware of the prophecy of the mode of transportation taken by the Messiah into Jerusalem.There's no evidence of anything you say. There's no evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and plenty of evidence of many authors. There's no evidence of fulfilled prophecy. There's no evidence of inerrancy, and plenty of evidence of errors and contradictions. And just recently you changed the definition of inerrancy, from applying to the entire Bible to only applying to teaching that matters, where you alone decide what teaching matters and what doesn't. Objectivity isn't in your vocabulary.So I'm curious. That pi equals three and insects have four legs and that bats are birds, are these errors that don't matter and so don't affect claims of inerrancy, or are they teaching that matters and that therefore require convoluted explanations?--Percy

The KJV is a poetic translation, not a literal translation. Putting them side-by-side: "Seven seven" from the literal translation is clearly a colloquial way of saying "seven pairs". Where the KJV says "by sevens" it can only mean "seven pairs".One pair is not the same as seven pair, therefore the Bible contains two contradictory passages.Even using your crazy idea, one pair is not the same as three pair plus one, therefore the Bible still contains two contradictory passages. This is just another way of saying you have no evidence that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Spoken like a true believer, but the evidence doesn't support such trust. What you need is evidence supporting your views accompanied by arguments that work outside of the pews of fundamentalist churches. Certainly the rest of Christianity rejects "three pair plus one".I think most philosophers of religion would say what a foolish and vain quest it is to prove (in a scientific sense, tentatively with evidence) which is the one true religion. Belief comes from the heart, not the head. You're on the right track when you reference trust while speaking about belief, but you can't equate trust to evidence because belief and proof (again, in a scientific sense) are two different things. They live in different spheres.--Percy

What you mean by "read in context" is "pretend to yourself that it means the opposite of what it says."In other words, it's a contradiction.--Percy

If this were Bible Study then you'd be right, we'd be letting the discrepancies distract us from the important message.But this isn't Bible Study. It's a discussion thread with a very specific topic, and what's important in this thread is evidence pro or con for whether the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. "Small discrepancies," otherwise known as errors or contradictions, are evidence that the Bible is not inerrant.--Percy

You're threatening judgments of God against those who do not believe as you do? How charitable.You're illustrating one of the perverse downsides of the doggedly religious, which is when they're so arrogant that they believe that they (rather than God) are the source of truth. They become impatient for God to pass judgment, so they do it themselves.--Percy

There's no need to keep stating this, we already know that this is one of the things you're hoping to prove in this thread. Instead of taking up thread space repeatedly declaring your position you would be better served by getting started proving it.--Percy

Your interpretation departs significantly from the text as written. We understand that if Acts 22:9 had instead said, "They heard the voice but did not understand," then it wouldn't be a contradiction, but it doesn't say that. It says, "They heard not the voice."We understand that if the text meant something other than what it said that the contradiction is resolved, but saying something other than what is meant is an error.--Percy

You're providing two different answers. Do the discrepant numbers of disciples make sense when "fully understood in context" (in which case you must explain a rational context), or are they unimportant discrepancies not affecting inerrancy because they are not an important part of the message (in which case you must explain the criteria for identifying important parts of the message)?--Percy