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]

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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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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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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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Redstang writes:
Can you find any more rules of Egypt since 2500 years ago who you think were Egyptian natives?

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I looked into this once a couple years ago. Ezekiel 30 is a prophecy that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia will conquer Egypt, ruin it, and scatter her people to the winds, something which never happened. The Egyptian dynasty did eventually fall, but it was a little bit after Nebuchadnezzar, to Cambyses of Persia in 522 when Egypt was ruled by the Saite dynasty.But Egypt regained it's independence in 404 BC under Amyrtaeus of Sais. Amyrtaeus was not only an Egyptian prince, he actually ruled Egypt, and this was not the last time this happened. There was Nepherites I, Achoris, Psammuthis and Nepherites II. And don't forget Nasser in the 20th century.You also have to deal with the inherent ambiguity in Ezekial 30:13b: No longer will there be a prince in Egypt. Does this mean the ruling family will have no more male descendants? That no Egyptian prince will ever again rule Egypt? That no prince from anywhere will ever again rule Egypt? Is prince meant strictly as prince, or could it be any title of nobility, eg, princess, king, queen, pharaoh. And is the translation important? For example, I used NIV above, but KJV renders this passage as, There will be no one to rule Egypt.Also, what is it about the passage that makes anyone think it is a prophecy for all time? Using the NIV translation again, the passage has the Lord describing how he's going to use Nebuchadnezzar to punish Egypt. But after Nebuchadnezzar has brought down Egypt's ruler, sent her villages into captivity and set fire to the land, the most logical conclusion is that the punishment is over. Nowhere does it say Egypt is to be punished forever until the end of time.Ezekial was a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar and would have known whether Nebuchadnezzar actually conquered Egypt. That Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt invites speculation that Ezekial 30 is a later insertion by scribes who were aware Egypt had fallen to an eastern power, but by that time it was so long ago that they erroneously attributed it to Babylonia instead of Persia.-Percy

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 12-16-2001]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this topic.

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Mark writes:
That a prophecy need not be for all time is a good point. However, Ezek 30 is specific, "no longer" means no longer. If there IS a prince after the time of writing, then the the "no longer" part of the prophecy is violated. No time scale is mention/implied, if it was meant, it should have said so. There may be a billion years between the prophecy & the next prince, it matters not, the prophecy is still false. Whether Egypts punishment is over or not is irrelevent. The prophesy should have said "No longer will there be a prince in Egypt, whilst I'm punishing it", but it doesn't.

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I'm afraid you haven't convinced me on the "forever" part, for two reasons. First, there's just normal usage of the term "no longer." If you go to Las Vegas, you'll [b][i]no longer[/b][/i] have any money. If Osama escapes there will [b][i]no longer[/b][/i] be safety anywhere in the world. If you crash your car you'll [b][i]no longer[/b][/i] have transportation. "Forever" doesn't seem inherent in the term.As you noted, translations differ. Here's a bunch of translations of Ezekiel 30:13, ordered from traditional to modern:

Bible Translation	Ezekiel 30:13
King James Version	And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.
New King James Version	There shall no longer be princes from the land of Egypt
New American Standard Bible	And there will no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt.
American Standard Version	And there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt.
Third Millennium Bible	And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.
Revised Standard Version	There shall no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt.
New Revised Standard Version	There shall no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt.
Douay-Rheims Bible	And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.
World English Bible	And there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt.
Webster's Bible	And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.
Darby	And there shall be no more a prince out of the land of Egypt.
Young's Literal Translation	And a prince of the land of Egypt there is no more.
The Bible in Basic English	Never again will there be a ruler in the land of Egypt.
New Century Version	There will no longer be a leader in Egypt.
God's Word	A prince will never rise again in Egypt.
New Living Translation	There will be no rulers left in Egypt.
Today's English Version	There will be no one to rule Egypt.

So is Ezekiel 30:13 a prophecy for all time? Is it a prophecy only of ethnic Egyptian rulers? Of male Egyptian rulers? Of all rulers from anywhere? The only incorrect position might be insisting on a particular interpretation as the only possibility. This is one of the beauties of prophecy. When it is done well it is consistent with any outcome, which I think is Joz's position.This particular prophecy is also usually mentioned with an aura of awe as if an ethnic group never again having a native ruler is a rare event. But when was the last time a Hittite ruled in Turkey? A Moabite in Jordan? A Babylonian in Iraq? A Phoenician in Lebanon? A Parthian in Iran? History is strewn with ruling ethnic groups falling from a power which is never regained.I am not saying that this in any way disproves Biblical prophecy. My primary desire would be that believers subject prophecy to some systematic analysis, including a set of predefined criteria by which to assess whether a prophecy is actually prophetic. Some time ago in another discussion I proposed these criteria:

1. The prophecy must be specific. For example, "There will be wars and rumors of wars" does not qualify as a specific prophecy. The determining factor in deciding specificity is that there must be only one event, one person, one whatever, etc, in history to which the prophecy could reasonably apply.
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2. The complete prophecy must be fulfilled. If parts are fulfilled and parts not fulfilled then the prophecy is not considered fulfilled. In other words, you can't pick and choose predictions out of a longer prophecy.
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3. The prophecy must be interpreted in the context in which it appears. A prophecy about one time period or geographic region or political entity can't be reinterpreted into other venues.
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4. The event or person or whatever that fulfills the prophecy must have extra-Biblical corroboration.
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5. The original prophecy itself must be interpreted in a straightforward way, not in some convoluted way.
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6. If the prophecy is mundane and easy to satisfy, then it must not have been previously known to the person, group, whatever, that fulfills it.

I think we may actually be in agreement, because you close with this:

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When we question these propohecies, christians always fall back on the accuracy of the Hebrew translation. Words mean different things the closer I look at them, it seems. I ask then, how do christians know you are getting the true meaning of the bible when there are so many translatory inconsistencies in the prophecies, of all things. If anything needed to be literal, it should be them. What does that say for the rest of it?

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--Percy

Hi, Redstang!Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. Hope you're still around.

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Redstang writes:
All this is saying is that God will allow Nebuchadnezzar to invade Egypt and kill a vaste number of Egyptians. Although there is no historical record of this outside of the bible, this does not mean it didn't happen.

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Well, are you being faithful or scholarly here? If you're being faithful then I concede by all means. But if scholarly then such an approach requires corroboration with other sources. I agree that the absence of a historical record doesn't mean it didn't happen, but it does mean the prophecy is unconfirmed.What history does record is that Nebuchadnezzar attempted an invasion of Egypt but was repulsed with little accomplished. Ezekiel 30 is quite explicit that Nebuchadnezzar would wreak the terror, and so this prophecy is inconsistent with a scenario where Nebuchadnezzar only weakened Egypt so that Cambyses of Persia could conquer Egypt some years later.

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Percy writes:
But Egypt regained it's independence in 404 BC under Amyrtaeus of Sais.

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Restang writes:
Amyrtaeus was a Libyan.

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Amyrtaeus of Sais was an Egyptian from (of course) Sais, a city located on the Nile Delta. He ruled Egypt from 404-399 BC, the entire 28th dynasty. Perhaps you are confusing him with an earlier Amyrtaeus who with Libyan help attempted to wrest control of the Delta from the Achaemenians.

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Percy writes:
And don't forget Nasser in the 20th century.

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Redstang replies:
Can you trace his family heritage back 2,000 years to the original Egyptians?

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Uh, no. But if by your standards only those who can trace their ancestry back 2000 years can be considered Egyptian, then there are darn few Egyptians living in Egypt today.Your argument has other consequences, such as rendering the prophecy trivial since all ethnicities mix over time, placing all countries in the same situation you claim for Egypt. Mixing would change the ruling race to a different race, and with the original race gone forever it could never return to power.

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Percy writes:
But KJV renders this passage as, There will be no one to rule Egypt.

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Redstang replies:
KJV's quote is exactly this "and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt"

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I misspoke. I meant to say the other translation was Today's English Version. How I ended up saying it was KJV I cannot explain. The point I was making was that the variations in translation are indicators of inherent ambiguity in the original Hebrew.

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Percy writes:
Ezekiel was a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar and would have known whether Nebuchadnezzar actually conquered Egypt. That Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt invites speculation that Ezekiel 30 is a later insertion by scribes who were aware Egypt had fallen to an eastern power, but by that time it was so long ago that they erroneously attributed it to Babylonia instead of Persia.

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Redstang replies:
Then they would have attributed it to the Persians instead of taking a chance that someone knew better.

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That they didn't know that they didn't know is precisely the point. In this scenario, Ezekiel 30 is a later insertion by scribes living long after the time of both Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Cambyses of Persia. After the passage of so much time Cambyses's name had been forgotten, but not Nebuchadnezzar's. (This is completely unfair, of course, since Nebuchadnezzar imprisoned the Hebrews, while Cambyses freed them. But it's also perfectly understandable because the period of captivity in Babylon lasted a long time, while the release happened in an instant.) And so the scribes attributed their "prophecy" to the most prominent ruler of that era that they knew: Nebuchadnezzar.Of course, Ezekiel 30 could have come about some other way, but whatever the case and as I've already stated, it's unlikely Ezekiel wrote it himself since he and Nebuchadnezzar were contemporaries. Naturally it's possible Ezekiel wrote the prophecy while Nebuchadnezzar was still alive (this would have been in a rash moment, since good prophets never make it clear who they're talking about), but if he outlived the king then I can imagine the frenzy as he tried to get the galley proofs back from the publisher.--Percy

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 01-10-2002]

Fred? Fred Kelly? Is it really you? How the heck are ya? Great to hear from you again! Sorry to take so long to reply, things got a bit busy around the holidays.I replied to Redstang earlier today, I think it addresses most of your points concerning Ezekiel 30. If you'd like to discuss your other points just open a new thread!Glad you're aboard!--PercyPS - I never got a reply to message 14918 - does that mean I won the 2LOT debate?

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Redstang writes:
Do you accept the fact that a non-Egyptian prince has ruled Egypt since at least 2,300 years ago until 1952?

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Simply based upon the available evidence, no. Plus by your interpretation this prophecy is forever, so you can't say "until 1952."But even more importantly, why are you holding us to a higher standard of evidence than you hold yourself to. You once said:

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Redstang wrote in message 44:
Although there is no historical record of this outside of the bible, this does not mean it didn't happen.

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I think this is a horrible standard for making historical judgments, but if this is the standard you hold yourself to then it's only fair you not hold others to a more strict standard.The most significant problem for this prophecy is that it predicts Egypt would fall to Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian when it in fact fell to Cambyses the Persian.--Percy

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Redstang writes:
"Amyrtaios was the only ruler of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty. He is thought to have been a Libyan. He ruled Egypt from Sais for six years."

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I had come across other sites that suggested he was Libyan but I can't seem to find them now.

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You forgot to mention where your quote came from.The following cite comes from The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume VI, Macedon, 401-301 BC, Cambridge University Press, 1984. It states that Amyrtaeus was a native ruler well after the Persian conquest: --Percy

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Redstang writes:
I have found many contradictions in the history of Egypt during the time of Nebuchadnezzar. From this I say it is unfair to say that because history records Egypt fell to the Persians instead of nebby that the prophecy did not come true.

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I don't know that I could agree about "many contradictions", but I recognize that much about this period in Egypt is unknown and/or uncertain. From such sparse information it is impossible to legitimately conclude that Nebuchadnezzar never razed and pillaged Egypt, but neither can you derive corroboration.Razing and pillaging on a major scale tends to be remembered, it gets historians attention, and it leaves archaeological artifacts, eg, celebratory tablets describing military successes. Cambyses's Egyptian conquest is well documented, but for an earlier Nebuchadnezzar conquest there is nothing, just brief mention of a skirmish at Egypt's border. It seems very unlikely that all evidence of anything as significant as the Nebuchadnezzar conquest described in the Bible could have completely vanished.Let's back up a moment and take stock. The Ezekiel 31 prophecy (which actually begins at Ezekiel 30) was cited as evidence that the Bible is the word of God because it contains accurate prophecy, but the prophecy is of an event that history never records. It might have happened, but if your goal is persuasion it might be better to pick a prophecy involving something history agrees actually took place.--Percy

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Redstang writes:
From 343ad-1952bc all the kings and their sons were a different race of people than ancient egyptians.

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Regardless of what the bible says or means, do you agree that this is true?

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I think you're missing several key points:

1. In message 69 I listed a number of races which at one time had self-rule which they lost long ago, never to regain. The reason this Biblical prophecy isn't amazing is that it could have given any of a number of other ruling powers of the period and it would have been correct. In fact, the writer of the prophecy would have been hard put to list ruling powers that lost power only to regain it later.
2. The historical record indicates that Amyrtaeus was a native Egyptian ruler after the Persian conquest. The historical record cannot be considered unequivocal on this point, but for a prophecy to be considered amazing (and thereby persuasive to non-believers of prophecy) it must at least have corroboration with the historical record.
3. The prophecy says Nebuchadnezzar was the instrument of Egypt's destruction, but history records it was Cambyses. Again, in order for the prophecy to be considered amazingly prophetic it must at least be consistent with other evidence.
4. The evidence suggests this prophecy is a later insertion by scribes who thought Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Egypt.

In order for this prophecy to be persuave it must be amazing evidence of divine inspiration in the Bible, and so you must have:

1. Strong evidence the prophecy was written before the event.
2. Strong evidence that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt, rather than Cambyses as history records.
3. Strong evidence no native Egyptian ever again ruled Egypt.
4. Strong evidence that your interpretation of "a prince will never again rule Egypt" is correct.
5. Strong evidence that the other events described in the prophecy came true, such as the streams of the Nile drying up.

You have none of these. Can't we move on to some other prophecy that possesses less ambiguity and better corroboration with the historical record?--Percy

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Redstang writes:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/5809/discover/decline3.html

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"Nectanebo II was the last native ruler of Egypt"

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Hmmm... That's strange. Why does it say the last native ruler? What do you think they mean by native on this website?

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Britannica concurs, saying that Nectanebo II ruled from 360-343 BC. It would appear that the Cambridge Ancient History and the Britannica disagree on who was the last native ruler of Egypt, but in any case, both Amyrtaeus II and Nectanebo II ruled after the Persian conquest and long after the time of Nebuchadnezzar. And before Nectanebo II was Nectanebo I. We now have three native Egyptians ruling Egypt after the time of Nebuchadnezzar. How many do you want?Also, the website mentions domination of Egypt by Assyrians and Persians, but not Babylonians.Perhaps we could say this: It is indeed unfortunate that the passage of time has so confused the historical record that the events prophesized in Ezekiel 29 and 30 (I said 30 and 31 before, sorry, I was going from memory) can no longer be reliably corroborated, but that's the reality of the situation, so we may as well move on.May I suggest something from Daniel?--Percy

I'm not sure it's a good idea taking up valuable work time drafting a lengthy response. Ezekiel 30:13 may indeed be an amazingly accurate prophecy, but if so then it isn't our fault or your fault or the Bible's fault or anyone's fault that the objective historical and literary evidence to establish this is absent. No amount of your writing or anyone's writing can change this.--Percy

Please take all the time you need composing a reply.I think your suggestion for a new thread to discuss possible Biblical contradictions is a good one. This thread seems to be focused on prophecy, and usually the narrower the focus for a thread the better.--Percy