The Inerrancy of the Bible

I think your approach can be described as, "For every error identified, simply deny that it is an error." In this case you've rationalized that, "If I can find an interpretation for which this passage isn't wrong, no matter how outlandish, unbelievable or inconsistent, then it isn't wrong."The definition of an error isn't what you personally decide to concede as an error. In this particular case, the contrived nature of your explanation is clear to everyone.On many instances of Biblical error, the rationalizations are complex and incredibly extensive. The best example is the rationalizations invented to explain Genesis that come from those who agree with ICR. The approach goes like this: "Physics is wrong. Geology is wrong. Cosmology is wrong. Astronomy is wrong. Radiometric dating is wrong. Archeology is wrong." And so on.--Percy

That's interesting, but I didn't make any arguments about bats, birds or butterflies.I wasn't attempting to raise any specific objections to your arguments about the passage about clean and unclean animals. I was objecting to your approach. You seem to believe that if you simply deny that errors in the Bible are errors, that the Bible is therefore inerrant. You implement this approach by inventing contexts and interpretations for which the passage could be correct, no matter how strained.Using your approach I could show any text errant. If I had a book that said, "The sky is green," I could just say, "There was probably a volcanic eruption nearby on the day this happened." This kind of exercise proves nothing.In the same way, you postulate that the clean/unclean passage only considered legs that weren't used for jumping, despite that the Bible says no such thing. You say this because this is an interpretation under which the passage could be correct, and not because there's any indication that this is what the passage actually meant. And by the way, there are plenty of species of beetles that don't jump, probably most of them.It's almost as if you and 36Christians are approaching this as some kind of test of religious faith, dutifully contriving some sort of rationalization for every Biblical error raised. It's an interesting exercise, I suppose, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything.--Percy

And other translations agree with you that it is definitely not a beetle in the original Hebrew, so this represents yet another error in the KJV.--Percy

Independent of whether I agree, this isn't the position advocated by this thread's originator. This is from the opening post (Message 1) which set the context for this topic: So when the KJV says beetle when it should have said cricket (according to NIV), that's an error.--Percy

I don't want to see you do that, either. What I'd like to see is for you to continue the discussion by continuing to address the points raised by PaulK. Summarizing:

1. PaulK said that the the Bible nowhere states that Matthew was an eyewitness to the birth of Jesus. After reading your Message 81 carefully, it isn't obvious that you were saying that Matthew was an eyewitness, so perhaps you could clarify.
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2. PaulK said that the Bible contains an apparent contradiction concerning the date of birth of Jesus:
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   1. Matthew tells us that Jesus was born during the time of King Herod, who died in 4 BC.
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   2. Luke tells us that Jesus was born during the census while Quirinius was governor of Syria. While there are no records of any such census, Quirinius was governor of Syria years after the death of King Herod.
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   This contradiction is not due to a calendar confusion.
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   You postulated that possibly Quirinius was governor of Syria for a long time, possibly as far back as when Herod was still alive, but history records that Quirinius was an army officer at that time.

--Percy

The premise of this thread is that the KJV of the Bible is perfect and without error. People are pointing to what look like errors to them, and the primary method being used to show that they are not errors is to explain what the text should have said. I don't understand why anyone thinks that explaining the error makes it not an error.On a math test, if you divide when you should have multiplied, then that's an error. You can explain that you know you should have multiplied, and that you really meant to, it was just a mental slip or maybe you hit the wrong button on the calculator, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an error.In history, if you write that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1775, that's an error. You can explain that it's just a typo, but that doesn't make what you wrote without error.So I don't understand how these explanations of what the KJV really meant or what the original texts really said makes the KJV without error. If it didn't contain these errors, it wouldn't be necessary to offer these explanations.--Percy