A Christian's inerrancy challenge

[Guest sbwilley]

Iprayican:

 

Are you still there? It looked like you had been scared away. Anyhow, I have a question for you relative to the innerancy of the Bible. Any other Christian out there who believes in innerancy, feel free to chime in.

 

Here is my challenge: Do you believe that God is Satan? (Of course you don't; that's what we debaters call a rhetorical question).

 

Well, then please tell me how you can uphold the innerancy of the Bible when you compare the following two verses?

 

2 Samuel 24:1 -- "And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah."

 

vs. (same event described in a different book)

 

1 Chronicles 21:1 -- "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel."

 

There was no character named Satan in OT writings until the Jews were exposed to Persian dualism during the Babylonian exile. 2 Samel was written before then. 1 Chronicles recorded the same events, but was written after the exile, possibly by Ezra. Whoever put this verse in the form we have it decided it had better be revised (after the exile, God supposedly doesn't tempt people to do bad things).

 

Please tell me how you can reconcile these verses into a common theology without changing the words of one verse or the other.

 

With Respect,

SBWilley

 

Go ahead, take your best shot.  One scripture at a time I will attempt to prove that the Bible is inerrant which seems to be one of the biggest roadblocks to having faith that it could be the Word of God.  Please respect that I am only one person and can only accept this challenge if you are patient with me in answering one of your challenges at a time.  After I have posted a response, you can all take turns with your rebutal.  One against how many?  I think this will be a fair test of my confidence in the Bible.  It will be like David standing up against Goliath, or Joshua and the Walls of Jericho or Samson and the jawbone of an ass.  Let the challenge begin.

97193[/snapback]

[Heimdall]

I have been through this entire thread and the lack of answers from he who claimed to have never lost a debate stands out like a neon sign! I can see how he never lost a debate, he put his opponents to sleep with his tons of bull shit. I guess he believes in that old adage, "If you can't blind them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bull shit!" He even had the audacity to offer quotes from the psuedepighrapha, Daniel - a book written during the Maccabean Reconstitution in about 165 BCE! Sorry, no Seegar! - Heimdall

 

Although I do enjoy threads that are like soap operas, you can go away for weeks and come back and it is at the same place as when you left!

[Heimdall]

I guess that we can take it for granted that iprayican couldn't! . I'll bet his god is really pissed at him right about now! Don't you just love it when Christ cultists let their steamboat mouths overload their rowbow asses? Well, maybe the next idiot will have better staying power , then again, maybe not - Heimdall

[Jose]

Aw! I missed the whole thing!

 

I wanted to poke at IPIC too!

 

Damn it.

 

Mine would have been simple...

 

Without a hyoid bone, human language is impossible.

Equine creatures do not have a hyoid bone.

Numbers 22:27-30

 

Go.

[Karl-777]

I guess that we can take it for granted that iprayican couldn't!.....

As we've pointed out in this thread, claims of biblical "inerrancy" and "infallibility" fail.

 

If the bible fails as a "perfect" "authority" allegedly "revealed" by "perfect" biblegod via "divinely inspired" "holy men", any exclusionist dogma based upon it also fails, and is therefore.....

........immaterial.

 

K

[not1not2]

awww man, I was wondering why the gospel of John says that Jesus' altercation with the money changers happens at the beginning of his ministry, whereas in the 3 synoptic gospels, it happens at the end of his ministry.

 

Ohh well, considering how many weeks it took her to reply to the first question, she would probably getting around to my question somewhere around 2008 or so.

 

take care

 

_/\_

[thunderbolt]

This was truly the best entertainment I had for a long time. No Sunday service that I can ever remember trumps this post!

 

Thanks and Praises BE to EXC's for making your fellow-creature happy, as Thomas Paine would say.

 

I have a couple of challenges for this person too, but it seems like I am too late.

 

-----

 

On the whole Nazarene thing;

 

Mark calls Jesus the Nazarene (Mark 1:24, 10:47, 14:67, 16:6)

Luke calls him the Nazarene twice (Luke 4:34, 24:9)

 

BUT

 

Matthew, John and Acts ALWAYS calls him “Jesus the Nazorean”

 

The apologist will say - SO???

 

Well, as it turns out, an early Christian cataloguer of “heresies” mentions a pre-Christian sect called the “Nazoreans.” Their name meaning the Keeper of the Torah. They were supposedly a sect that that can be tracked back to the Times of Jeremiah.

 

This is probably one of those copyist errors that made it’s way into the early Gospel fabrications, and needless to say, the apologists of the “faith” had to manufacture something to make the story work. What's new?

 

Sound a lot more plausible than iprayican’s FABrication.

 

ta

[Heimdall]

I have just went over the entire thread where iprayican attempted to show that the NT was the truth and here are my observations:

In her attempts to reconcile Luke and Matthew, she committed several blunders in history. She tried to say the star of Bethlehem was a nova or supernova, Yet these stellar phenomena do not move, appear suddenly and the nearest one to the traditional period of Jesus birth was a nova recorded by Chinese astronomers in the constellation of Capicorn, this would mean that since supernova cannot move (leading the Magi from Jerusalem to Bethlehem would require the star to move southward), this could not be the Star of Bethlehem.

Next, she stated that Herod was the Procurator of Judea. Actually, his father Antipater was appointed Procurator of Judea in 47 BCE, and in turn appointed Herod as governor of Galilee. When Antipater died suddenly in 43 BCE, Herod realizing that the position of Procurator was not hereditary, married princess Mariamne, of the Hasmonean line and in 40 BCE was declared “King of Judea” by Marc Anthony. Herod was the last true king of Judea, albeit a client king. His sons did not inherit the title and became known under the title “Tetarch”

She next tries to tie Jesus birth to the year 4 BCE. This is not necessarily true. While Matthew recorded Jesus as being born during the reign of Herod the Great (40 BCE – 4 BCE), Luke recorded Jesus as having been born during the governorship of Cyrenius (Publius Sulpicius Quirinius) over Syria (6 CE – 9 CE). This is a 10 to 11 year discrepancy between the two gospels. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (125-202 CE) had him preaching during the reign of Trajan (98-117 CE) and Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis (310-403 CE) put his birth before Herod the Great and during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE). We have time span of well over a century that he could have been born in. This is strong evidence that Jesus of Nazareth a.k.a. the Christ is nothing more than a construct and never existed at all.

Next she speculated on the possibility that Joseph and Mary took a house in Bethlehem and that is where the Magi found them. All this speculation doesn’t change the fact that Luke records that after the circumcision, Mary’s purification (surely this wasn’t a two year stint) and Jesus’ presentation at the Temple, “ And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.” (: Luke 2:39) Whereas, Matthew has them going to Egypt after possibly living in Bethlehem for two years. Of course, the scenario put forth by Matthew doesn’t really stand up to historical scrutiny. None of the myriad of historians writing during or immediately after the life-time of Herod makes any mention of the “Slaughter of the Innocents”. Not even Josephus, who considered Herod to be the scourge of Judea and delighted in reporting the many sins of the man! What is most likely is that Matthew borrowed this story from one of the many such stories of the various other savior gods and deified kings that preceded Christianity.

Finally, she tried to use Daniel to show the chain of prophecy that Jesus completed. Unfortunately, Daniel is a recognized pseudepigrapha written by Maccabeean scribes around 160 BCE and is worthless as evidence. She called “Checkmate” but what she didn’t realize is that the checkmate was against her. After all that she started whining that we mistreated her and that she would never be back. Too bad, so sad…she might have learned from us! - Heimdall

[Fweethawt]

Hey Hymey, would you mind explaining what this word means please? - pseudepigrapha

 

[Heimdall]

Hey Hymey, would you mind explaining what this word means please? - pseudepigrapha

The dictionary says it so much better than I can:

Spurious writings, especially writings falsely attributed to biblical characters or times. 2. A body of texts written between 200 b.c. and a.d. 200 and spuriously ascribed to various prophets and kings of Hebrew Scriptures. - Heimdall

[Mythra]

Bumped up so sub_hero can get started resolving these for us. He says that there are no errors in the bible that can't be resolved. Let's see.

[Guest sub_zer0]

Here is my challenge: Do you believe that God is Satan? (Of course you don't; that's what we debaters call a rhetorical question).

 

Well, then please tell me how you can uphold the innerancy of the Bible when you compare the following two verses?

 

2 Samuel 24:1 -- "And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah."

 

vs. (same event described in a different book)

 

1 Chronicles 21:1 -- "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel."

 

There was no character named Satan in OT writings until the Jews were exposed to Persian dualism during the Babylonian exile. 2 Samel was written before then. 1 Chronicles recorded the same events, but was written after the exile, possibly by Ezra. Whoever put this verse in the form we have it decided it had better be revised (after the exile, God supposedly doesn't tempt people to do bad things).

 

Please tell me how you can reconcile these verses into a common theology without changing the words of one verse or the other.

 

With Respect,

SBWilley

 

Simple, God decrees Satan, read Job and see how Satan interacts and acts upon things. Those things may be the same as God but for different reasons, thus it reads in regards to Satan in one place and to God in another.

 

God is judgmentally angry with Israel (which includes David), and punishes them by allowing Satan to 'incite' David against Israel. Are we to think, because God decrees evil (i.e. Satan), one could take the view of God ultimately controlling things or Satan being the one who literally 'incites' David.

 

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hcensus.html

[SkepticOfBible]

 

Simple, God decrees Satan, read Job and see how Satan interacts and acts upon things. Those things may be the same as God but for different reasons, thus it reads in regards to Satan in one place and to God in another.

 

So in order words, the command had come from God through Satan., and he does have power over "Satan".

 

God is judgmentally angry with Israel (which includes David), and punishes them by allowing Satan to 'incite' David against Israel.

 

So Satan is nothing more than a tool of God. I see. So God creates a excuse through Satan to punish David? Although nowhere does it explain as to why taking a census was a sin?

[Guest sub_zer0]

So Satan is nothing more than a tool of God. I see. So God creates a excuse through Satan to punish David? Although nowhere does it explain as to why taking a census was a sin?

 

No, Satan is the opposite of God and God controls or decrees Satan. Both statements are true in 2 Sam. and I Chron.

 

Since God is in control ultimately, God incited David. In another place Satan was responsible, either statement is true. God can use Satan yp

 

... to fulfill His will.

 

Remember ultimately, God wanted to teach David not to trust in his number of fighting men, but to trust in Him.

[jrmarlin]

So Satan is nothing more than a tool of God. I see. So God creates a excuse through Satan to punish David? Although nowhere does it explain as to why taking a census was a sin?

 

No, Satan is the opposite of God and God controls or decrees Satan. Both statements are true in 2 Sam. and I Chron.

 

Since God is in control ultimately, God incited David. In another place Satan was responsible, either statement is true. God can use Satan yp

 

... to fulfill His will.

 

Remember ultimately, God wanted to teach David not to trust in his number of fighting men, but to trust in Him.

If God is everything than God is Satan, too. Satan was the highest angel of God and when he fell he became Satan. God, by the bible, still is Satan. Also, God created evil; therefore evil is a direct product of God. If what your bible says is true, God created everything - therefore everything is created by God, if everything is created by God, then the bad and the ugly were made by him as well. Quick cherry pickin' sweetness.

[♦ ficino ♦]

yes, one of the problems of fundamentalistic religion is that all is permitted. Any atrocity can be justified, and commanded to one's followers, by saying "God says...." Religion certainly has created evil as well as good. It's not just that some people misconstrue religion; religion's absolutist claims lend themselves by their nature to absolutist misuse.

[Checkmate]

So Satan is nothing more than a tool of God. I see. So God creates a excuse through Satan to punish David? Although nowhere does it explain as to why taking a census was a sin?

 

No, Satan is the opposite of God and God controls or decrees Satan. Both statements are true in 2 Sam. and I Chron.

 

Since God is in control ultimately, God incited David. In another place Satan was responsible, either statement is true. God can use Satan yp

 

... to fulfill His will.

 

Remember ultimately, God wanted to teach David not to trust in his number of fighting men, but to trust in Him.

 

[jrmarlin]

My mother and my nutritionist told me taking small bites and chewing slowly is better for your digestion, large bites have a greater tendency to cause one to gag and pass through without gaining all the benefits one gains from smaller bits broken down over more time. You tend to enjoy it more that way, too. If you want to swallow a cow be my guest, but I rather like to serve my steaks well done by candle light served in the middle of a four course meal. With a name like yours you must understand what I am talking about. If you think the church is so bad, have you ever by chance set in on a scientific convention? If their biting remarks of disagreement to their collegues were bullets, we wouldn't have any scientists left! It's like my grandmother says, "It's like the pot calling the kettle black!" My great+ grandfather was Barton W. Stone and he saw the same thing you have observed. He went on a long spiritual journey and tried hard to reconcile the differences between the different denominations and search for truth but few wanted to listen. In the end he and a few others made a pledge never to stop searching, calling themselves only Christians and their church, the church of Christ, seeking to find what that meant in the scriptures and applying those principles in their lives. I'd like to think part of that same spirit is in me but understand this; wearing the name of Christianity doesn't make you perfect, it only covers you with one that is.

 

You know what... for someone who wants everyone here to respect you, you certainly have no problem coming on here with this holier-than-thou, shit attitude. Take small bites... well, I am a chick and I can say this to you with out being sexist... Bite this, baby....:::::showing her a left nipple::::::

 

As for explaining the babbling brook bible, you are doing a shit piss poor job at it. Until you get an education, don't play with these kids, cause you'll be up way past your bedtime. "Have a lovely day...." to quote a shit.

[Guest sub_zer0]

If God is everything than God is Satan, too. Satan was the highest angel of God and when he fell he became Satan. God, by the bible, still is Satan. Also, God created evil; therefore evil is a direct product of God. If what your bible says is true, God created everything - therefore everything is created by God, if everything is created by God, then the bad and the ugly were made by him as well. Quick cherry pickin' sweetness.

 

Hold on here, God is everything so God is Satan. How can that be when Satan was an angel like you say? I'm sorry but you saying it doesn't make it ture.

 

God created angels with free will, Lucifer created evil and became Satan. The angels are a direct product of God, Satan is a direct product of Lucifer.

[Asimov]

God created angels with free will, Lucifer created evil and became Satan. The angels are a direct product of God, Satan is a direct product of Lucifer.

 

 

Sub Zero, I can deductively prove that no one has free will if God is omniscient, so fuck you with your fallacious shit-talk.

[Guest sub_zer0]

Sub Zero, I can deductively prove that no one has free will if God is omniscient, so fuck you with your fallacious shit-talk.

 

So because God knows everything we can't have free will? Please prove it, don't just say you can, tell me how.

 

BTW, you are proof that there is free will because you choose not to accept God. There are two extrememes when speaking of free will and God. You either do Gods will or your will, your will being free will.

 

You are not believing in God, thus exorcising free will of the omnicient God.

[Anakin]

Sub Zero, I can deductively prove that no one has free will if God is omniscient, so fuck you with your fallacious shit-talk.

 

So because God knows everything we can't have free will? Please prove it, don't just say you can, tell me how.

 

BTW, you are proof that there is free will because you choose not to accept God. There are two extrememes when speaking of free will and God. You either do Gods will or your will, your will being free will.

 

You are not believing in God, thus exorcising free will of the omnicient God.

Looking forward to Asimov handing you your ass. As an aside, of course he has free will.

In reality every single one of us has free will. However in the pretend world of the bible

there is no free will.

[Guest sub_zer0]

Looking forward to Asimov handing you your ass. As an aside, of course he has free will.

In reality every single one of us has free will. However in the pretend world of the bible

there is no free will.

 

Why such hostility, can anybody respond to me without swearing at me? I mean, its starting to get old and that is why you aren't seeing me as much.

 

It's good you say we all have free will in reality, but that same reality for me is based off of the Bible. My question to you then is where in the Bible does it negate free will for our reality?

 

p.s. it isn't the swearing so much, its the way it is used.

 

yes, one of the problems of fundamentalistic religion is that all is permitted. Any atrocity can be justified, and commanded to one's followers, by saying "God says...." Religion certainly has created evil as well as good. It's not just that some people misconstrue religion; religion's absolutist claims lend themselves by their nature to absolutist misuse.

 

Religion didn't create evil. Evil, which was in existence before religion, influenced it. That evil influence on man, thus religion ultimately, led to man using it to justify things that the Bible never intended to justify in the first place.

 

By me saying Bible, I mean people who believe in it (the religion) and tryed to use it for justification of horrible things.

[Asimov]

So because God knows everything we can't have free will? Please prove it, don't just say you can, tell me how.

 

Here we go.

 

Definitions:

 

Libertarian Free Will: An action (mental or physical) is free if and only if the agent performing that action could have done otherwise. IOW, the ability to refrain from choosing x at point t.

 

Omniscient: All knowing. The knowledge of all things at all times in all places. The implications regarding omniscience is that there is no uncertainty factor in regards to God's knowledge of the entirety of existence. This requires that God exists in all places at all times.

 

Syllogism:

 

P1 - If God has always foreknown that Asimov would choose x at point t, then it is not within Asimov's power to refrain from choosing x at point t.

 

P2 - If it is not within Asimov's power to refrain from choosing x at point t, then Asimov's action x at point t is not a libertarian free action.

 

C1 - Therefore, if God has always foreknown that Asimov would choose x at point t, then Asimovs action x at point t is not a libertarian free action.

 

P3 - If God has foreknowledge of every human action, then no persons action is a free action.

 

C2 - Libertarian Free Will is invalid.

 

BTW, you are proof that there is free will because you choose not to accept God. There are two extrememes when speaking of free will and God. You either do Gods will or your will, your will being free will.

 

You are not believing in God, thus exorcising free will of the omnicient God.

 

Irrelevant, given the above syllogism, my actions are not the result of free will.

 

 

Why such hostility, can anybody respond to me without swearing at me? I mean, its starting to get old and that is why you aren't seeing me as much.

 

p.s. it isn't the swearing so much, its the way it is used.

 

And what way is it being used?

 

Don't like your views being called fallacious shit-talk? Then don't say things that are equivalent to fallacious shit-talk.

[SkepticOfBible]

So Satan is nothing more than a tool of God. I see. So God creates a excuse through Satan to punish David? Although nowhere does it explain as to why taking a census was a sin?

 

No, Satan is the opposite of God and God controls or decrees Satan. Both statements are true in 2 Sam. and I Chron.

 

Verse from the Hebrew Bible which says that Satan is the opposite of God. The Hebrew Bible clearly states that he is son of God/Angel of God.

 

And if God is controlling Satan, then how is he a "rebel angel"?

 

Since God is in control ultimately, God incited David. In another place Satan was responsible, either statement is true. God can use Satan yp

 

... to fulfill His will.

 

I am not argueing with you as to who is control.

 

Ultimately if Satan is on the leash of God, then all this doctrinal hocus pocus of Satan/Devil decieving you is nothing more than a deception from God himself. If God's want to stop all the temptation through Satan, he can stop right now.

 

But as you pointed Satan is nothing more than a tool, which God uses to "fulfill his will". If you are being tempted by Satan, then it is the will of God.

 

Perhaps instead of rebuking Satan, christians should pray to their god, to control Satan.

 

Remember ultimately, God wanted to teach David not to trust in his number of fighting men, but to trust in Him.

 

No, it was not.

 

Let's Take A Look At Satan

The manipulation of David by God in which God "moves", compels, or silently instructs David to order an improper census is based on God being angry at Israel.

 

The "sin" David committed was inspired by God, not by David. God was using David as a tool to take vengence on Israel for some unspecified transgression.If David had ordered a proper census, God would have had no valid reason to punish Israel.

An improper census was needed to generate a sin, which is then used as a reason for God to vent his wrath.

This whole census episode reeks of Godly manipulation.

 

Of course, Christian apologists will claim that it was David who committed the sin, so God's hands are clean.

However, the Bible elsewhere states that David had always done what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of his life, except in one matter(adultery) which is unrelated to this census issue:

 

1 Kings 15:5

Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

 

If, as this verse proclaims, David obeyed God and did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that God commanded him, except in one matter unrelated to the census, then he did not sin in the matter of the census. David was manipulated by God to "sin" when David ordered an improper census.

 

And if he sinned by carrying out God's will, what do you suppose would have happened if he had disobeyed and decided not to take a census?

 

As 2 Sam 24:10-15 shows, the Bible God then sinks deeper into psychosis by offering David three "options" of punishment for his "sin". David turns the decision over to God after declaring that he doesn't want to fall into the hands of men and God proceeds to kill 70,000 people by using a plague on them.

 

The Bible God has incited a man to do his bidding, then establishes that by following his instructions, the man has sinned . God then exterminates 70,000 innocent people for the "sin" of a man who was following God's instructions in the first place. This is the same God Christians claim is all holy, all righteous, all loving, who cannot tolerate sin, deserving of all praise and worship, and who holds the moral high ground of the universe. These same Christians chirp about how loving their God is, while decrying Satan as the epitome of "evil" who is responsible for all the ills of mankind and the world.

 

In light of the behavior demonstrated by God and not by Satan, it would be hard to find a verse more absurd than the following often quoted verse used by Christians to inspire their faith in God:

 

Eph 6:11

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil(Satan).

 

In reality, the evidence from the Bible indicates that it's God who is the schemer and not Satan.

 

This is the type of theological swamp in which Christianity has laid it's foundations . The next time you hear a Christian attempt to tap dance around these types of disturbing issues relating to their God and their arch enemy Satan, the response should be: If you really believe the Bible is the word of a God worthy of your worship, then you're stuck with exactly the type God you deserve.

 

Also read Was Satan Really A Rebel And Fallen Angel?