Christians Who Do Not Believe the Bible is Inerrant

[LostinParis]

On 6/9/2020 at 8:58 PM, Hierophant said:

What always confused me were those believers who thought that the Bible contained errors, but yet they believe anyway. Personally, I never understood the logic and I was wondering if anyone here came from that kind of background and could explain the logic behind it.

I was raised Catholic and was told that the bible does contain errors, because humans wrote it and humans are fallible. The errors were historical and scientific only, but inerrant concerning morality and faith. The bible is not a science book. The Pope is cool with The Big Bang and evolution, which are god’s mechanisms for creation.

Genesis was taught to me as metaphorical, to explain the nature of humans and our relationship with god. But the problem then arises... by what criteria do we determine which stories are literal and which are allegory?

[nontheistpilgrim]

I think we make a judgement on common sense backed by science and history. Then we interpret for today. So, for example, the story of the exodus is not backed up by modern research but it makes a good a story and may illustrate some truth (for those who are god believers).

I suggest that confusion occurs only when it is thought that the bible is inerrant!

 

[InamBerea]

To be fair, some of those who talk of Bible contradictions have not read the Bible. I'm not trying to be glib, but can anyone name the Chapter-verse of a contradiction? If so, I'll reply to the thread.

[Eugene39]

6 hours ago, InamBerea said:

To be fair, some of those who talk of Bible contradictions have not read the Bible. I'm not trying to be glib, but can anyone name the Chapter-verse of a contradiction? If so, I'll reply to the thread.

One of the things that caught my attention was Genesis 22: 1-14 vs. Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, and 32:35. The God of Jeremiah seems to have no recollection of ever having thought of someone sacrificing their children by fire.

[Orbit]

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

10 hours ago, InamBerea said:

To be fair, some of those who talk of Bible contradictions have not read the Bible. I'm not trying to be glib, but can anyone name the Chapter-verse of a contradiction? If so, I'll reply to the thread.

 

Perhaps you could try google? I'm sure someone has gone to the painstaking lengths to highlight contradictions, give apologetic responses to it, and state why the apologetics are bunk.

 

Perhaps you can start with this list?

 

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/contradictions.html 

 

Or this one?

 

https://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm 

[InamBerea]

@LogicalFallacy - It would be best for you to take what you consider the biggest fallacy and post it here in your own words. There's nothing there I haven't seen before. 

[InamBerea]

@Eugene39 - The conclusion of Genesis 39 shows us that God does not want child sacrifice from his people. It shows Abraham believed God could raise the dead (Heb 11:9). God used to occasion to say he would "provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice."(Gen 22:8), fulfilled when John the Baptist declared Jesus "the Lamb of God". (Jn 1:36)

 

In Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, Jer 32:5 God repeats that he does not want child sacrifice from his people, as he told Abraham in Gen 22:8 "the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice".

 

Jeremiah preached repentence to Jerusalem for 26 years, at the same time Ezekiel was writing letters to Jerusalem urging the inhabitants to turn back to the proper worship of God. From Abraham, Moses(Lev 20:2-5), Jeremiah and Ezekiel it's clear God does not want child sacrifice. God turned the tables on Abraham to show he wanted to give his son as a sacrifice for the world. (Gen 22:18).

[Hierophant]

The 10 Commandments, which ones are they?:

 

Exodus 20:

You shall have no other gods before me

You shall not make for yourself a graven image

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy

Honor your father and mother

You shall not kill

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

You shall not covet thy neighbor

 

Exodus 34 gives another:

You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God

You shall make for yourself no molten image

The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep

All that opens the womb is mine

Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest

You shall observe the feast of weeks, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering

Three times a year your males should appear before the Lord God

You shall not offer the blood sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left until the morning

The first of your first fruits from your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God

You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk

[Hierophant]

4 hours ago, InamBerea said:

@Eugene39 - The conclusion of Genesis 39 shows us that God does not want child sacrifice from his people. It shows Abraham believed God could raise the dead (Heb 11:9). God used to occasion to say he would "provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice."(Gen 22:8), fulfilled when John the Baptist declared Jesus "the Lamb of God". (Jn 1:36)

 

In Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, Jer 32:5 God repeats that he does not want child sacrifice from his people, as he told Abraham in Gen 22:8 "the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice".

 

Jeremiah preached repentence to Jerusalem for 26 years, at the same time Ezekiel was writing letters to Jerusalem urging the inhabitants to turn back to the proper worship of God. From Abraham, Moses(Lev 20:2-5), Jeremiah and Ezekiel it's clear God does not want child sacrifice. God turned the tables on Abraham to show he wanted to give his son as a sacrifice for the world. (Gen 22:18).

 

Would if matter if God did demand child sacrifice? He is God, and if you think it is your duty to obey him, why does his ethics and character matter? I would think it would be your duty regardless of what God does and demands.

 

Ezekiel 20:25-26 "Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the Lord."

 

Recommended reading: Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel by Dr. Heath Dewrell

[InamBerea]

@Hierophant - That's a good question. God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can endure, which suggests we all have a point where faith fails. (1Cor 10:13)

 

Peter denied Jesus when the pressure was too great. But Peter's relationship with God was restored, and he went on to write several new testament books. (Mat 26:69-75)

 

John the Baptist had a crisis of Faith. John announced Jesus as "The Lamb of God" (Jn 1:29), but later from prison he sent disciples to ask Jesus "are you the coming one or should we look for another?". (Mat 11:13).  After this, Jesus said of John that he was greater than anyone ever born. (Mat 11:11) 

 

The Christian message is that through Faith in Christ, God overlooks our failures.

 

Ezekiel and Jeremiah both preached repentance to Jerusalem for the last few years of the Kingdom of Judah. Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon at the time, and wrote letters to Jerusalem. Eventually when it was clear the people would not repent, and God decided to leave them to their sin and Judge them.

But, God also told Ezekiel that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ez 18:23). Paul said it's not God's will any should perish, but that all should repent and live. (2Pet 3:9)

[WalterP]

My fave Biblical inaccuracy is Deuteronomy 32 : 11.  

 

Like an eagle teaching its young to fly,

catching them safely on its spreading wings,

the Lord kept Israel from falling.

 

This never happens in reality.  Eagles don't catch their falling young on their spreading wings.  Such behaviour has never been observed.

 

Treating this as some kind of metaphor really won't work because if you are going to allude to something in nature to illustrate something about God then the illustration you use works best if its based on something that actually happens - not something that never happens.  Inventing something or being mistaken about the behaviour of eagles is a poor way to illustrate something about God.  

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

3 hours ago, Hierophant said:

The 10 Commandments, which ones are they?:

 

There are actually 600 and something commandments. Saying the "10 commandments" is cherry picking.

 

"Thou shalt not boil the kid in its mothers milk" is an interesting one.

 

Interestingly these laws are very similar to the code of Hammurabi which was written earlier. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/hammurabi

 

Quote

The stele was packed up and shipped to the Louvre in Paris, and within a year it had been translated and widely publicized as the earliest example of a written legal code—one that predated but bore striking parallels to the laws outlined in the Hebrew Old Testament.

 

[InamBerea]

@WalterP - Deut 32:1-11 is written as a poem. Deut 32:11 is intended to convey God's protection for Israel. The reference is repeated in Ex 19:4, so it was not carelessly written. Ancient Israel was an agrarian culture, I give them credit that they did not stumble on this verse.  The Bible does refer to wildlife not found in Israel today: Lions, Bears, Wild Donkeys. How do we know it's not a bird found in ancient Egypt that's now extinct? I don't have a problem with the verse.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

42 minutes ago, InamBerea said:

I don't have a problem with the verse.

And this is the crux of the matter.  Whatever contradictions, incompatibilities, inconsistencies we point out you will ultimately justify, ignore, explain away because your confirmation bias, indoctrination, cognitive dissonance will not allow you to take an objective, logical, rational approach to scripture.  

[WalterP]

7 hours ago, InamBerea said:

@WalterP - Deut 32:1-11 is written as a poem. Deut 32:11 is intended to convey God's protection for Israel. The reference is repeated in Ex 19:4, so it was not carelessly written. Ancient Israel was an agrarian culture, I give them credit that they did not stumble on this verse.  The Bible does refer to wildlife not found in Israel today: Lions, Bears, Wild Donkeys. How do we know it's not a bird found in ancient Egypt that's now extinct? I don't have a problem with the verse.

 

InamBerea,

 

We know that no extinct bird ever did this InamBerea because all birds have to abide by the laws of aerodynamics, trading off lift against weight and drag.  Catching its falling young would kill both the parent and the young.  Furthermore, if such a bird had existed but was now extinct, then the physical remains of these animals would have been discovered and examined by scientists.  They would have reconstructed it's flight characteristics from its bone structure (as they have done with other species) and found that it could have caught its young on its outstretched wings.  This finding would have been announced to the world as a clear vindication of the truth of scripture.  But has that happened?  No.  No such animal has ever been discovered, living or extinct.

 

Your two final sentences highlight the RedNeckProfessor's point.  You are not letting the text stand on its own merits.  You are inventing excuses to keep the text as perfect and inerrant as you have decided it must be.

 

That's right, isn't it?  You have already decided that nothing and nobody will ever be able to show you that the Bible is flawed?   

 

That you will always be able to find some way to keep it inerrant, no matter how it doesn't agree with reality?

 

Please answer these questions.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

[LogicalFallacy]

Further to the eagle learning to fly question:

 

Quote

 

"How do young eagles learn to fly? Is it true eagles carry their young to help them learn to fly?

No. An adult eagle can lift only about 1/3 of its weight. By the time a juvenile is ready to fly, it weighs as much as an adult.

Fledgling eaglets practice attaining life in a process called branching. First flights are generally downward glides from the nest to a lower branch or the ground." https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/eagle-nesting-young/ 

 

 

I know, I know, facts are a pain when it comes to religious beliefs, but as the quote in my signature says ""Facts don’t stop being facts because some bonehead disagrees with them or doesn’t believe them"

[InamBerea]

@WalterP @LogicalFallacy @TheRedneckProfessor  -  Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees is they spent too much effort on the minutiae, and missed what was important. Straining at knats and swallowing camels. (Mt 23:24) I take the Bible seriously, not literally. 

[Hierophant]

15 hours ago, InamBerea said:

@Hierophant - That's a good question. God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can endure, which suggests we all have a point where faith fails. (1Cor 10:13)

 

Where in the Bible does it say God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we could endure? I heard that trope a thousand times among the rank and file. Corinthians 10:13 is a reference to temptation, not testing, which could mean being tortured to death. There are plenty of Christians in history who were definitely put through ordeals that were too much to bear.

 

15 hours ago, InamBerea said:

 

Peter denied Jesus when the pressure was too great. But Peter's relationship with God was restored, and he went on to write several new testament books. (Mat 26:69-75)

 

Scholars agree that the apostle Peter did not write 1 or 2 Peter. They are forgeries written in his name to give the letters clout.

 

15 hours ago, InamBerea said:

 

John the Baptist had a crisis of Faith. John announced Jesus as "The Lamb of God" (Jn 1:29), but later from prison he sent disciples to ask Jesus "are you the coming one or should we look for another?". (Mat 11:13).  After this, Jesus said of John that he was greater than anyone ever born. (Mat 11:11) 

 

I see this as a contradiction from different authors. It is a glaring one at that. Think about what you included here, does it even make sense? John the Baptist is going around declaring Jesus as "The Lamb of God," then in another gospel, he is not really sure? Also, was John greater than Jesus? How could John be the greatest one ever born if Jesus was also born?

 

There is a theory out there that Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist before going his own way. A sect of John the Baptist survives to this day, they are called Mandaeans. Sometimes this sect was referred to as Nazoreans, hence, Jesus of Nazareth which could have been a later development of which was originally Jesus the Nazorean. No idea if this is actually how it was, nothing can ever been shown to be true, just a hypothesis.

 

15 hours ago, InamBerea said:

 

The Christian message is that through Faith in Christ, God overlooks our failures.

 

Plenty of Christians disagree it is just about "having faith." The Bible can definitely be read to imply you must be participating in your faith, not a passive bystander.

 

15 hours ago, InamBerea said:

 

Ezekiel and Jeremiah both preached repentance to Jerusalem for the last few years of the Kingdom of Judah. Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon at the time, and wrote letters to Jerusalem. Eventually when it was clear the people would not repent, and God decided to leave them to their sin and Judge them.

But, God also told Ezekiel that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ez 18:23). Paul said it's not God's will any should perish, but that all should repent and live. (2Pet 3:9)

 

I don't really understand the context of this response to my original post. You are just throwing out apologetics, as if the Bible, as we have it now, is the revealed Word of God. I am not willing to grant you that as it has been shown the Bible has been redacted, edited, and interpolated.

 

Why did you mention Paul in relation to 2 Peter? 2 Peter 3:9 was most definitely not written by Peter. It was written by a later Christian trying to explain away the delay of the Paraousia. Think about the context of the writing, the author is saying that people are scoffing the idea that there is a second coming that is supposed to happen. This must mean there was preaching, and we have to assume for some length of time, that there was second return that was supposed to happen. As of the writing, it has not happened so 2 Peter 3:9 is an apologetic trying to get out of tight spot for the failure of the Paraousia.

 

Consider when the author says, "For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation." The "fathers," who do you think that refers to? Surely it must mean the original apostles and leaders of the Christian church, which would include Peter. It seems the author made a slip here and did not think to cover their tracks in this situation.

[Hierophant]

14 minutes ago, InamBerea said:

@WalterP @LogicalFallacy @TheRedneckProfessor  -  Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees is they spent too much effort on the minutiae, and missed what was important. Straining at knats and swallowing camels. (Mt 23:24) I take the Bible seriously, not literally. 

 

Why do you take the Bible seriously? What line of thinking was the catalyst for determining the Bible was true and spoke to reality?

[InamBerea]

@Hierophant -- You're trying to make the discussion personal.  I'm here to address perceived fallacies in specific Bible passages. I won't respond to anything else.

[florduh]

7 minutes ago, InamBerea said:

@Hieophant -- You're trying to make the discussion personal.  I'm here to address perceived fallacies in specific Bible passages. I won't respond to anything else.

 

It IS personal. You are no doubt familiar with all the available documented examples of Biblical errors, inconsistencies and contradictions. It appears that you have refuted all this information to your own satisfaction, facts be damned. Restating them to someone who has already rejected the information is a waste of time. I stopped wasting time on apologists shortly after I stopped being one myself.

[Tsathoggua9]

On 6/9/2020 at 12:50 PM, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I think even fundamentalists realize, without realizing it, that the bible is not inerrant or infallible.  Every time someone says, "well, that scripture was just for those days" or "that verse doesn't actually mean...(whatever it actually says), they are subconsciously acknowledging that there's no way an omnipotent and omniscient god could have inspired it.  

 

Excellent point!

[WalterP]

37 minutes ago, InamBerea said:

@Hieophant -- You're trying to make the discussion personal.  I'm here to address perceived fallacies in specific Bible passages. I won't respond to anything else.

 

But it is personal, InamBerea.  It cannot be anything other than personal.

 

Whatever you write here displays your spiritual fruit.  Even if you strictly confine yourself to Biblical fallacies, how you behave when doing so will display your spiritual fruit to us.  

 

If you do as you wrote in your profile information and conduct yourself with honesty and respect, then we will see the good spiritual fruits of peace and faithfulness in your words.

 

But, if you refuse to answer perfectly reasonable questions that throw a spotlight on the Bible and matters of faith, then this displays a different kind of spiritual fruit to us.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

Edit.

Oh look.  Florduh is on the same wavelength as me and I didn't even know it until I posted.  How you behave here is under scrutiny, InamBerea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[InamBerea]

1 hour ago, Hierophant said:

I heard that trope a thousand times among the rank and file. Corinthians 10:13 is a reference to temptation

@Hierophant You're right. 1Cor 10:13 refers to temptation, not trials.

 

1 hour ago, Hierophant said:

Scholars agree that the apostle Peter did not write 1 or 2 Peter.

Authors of Bible books did not always identify themselves. The author of I&II Peter identifies himself as Peter the Apostle of Jesus Christ and there was only 1 Apostle named Peter. No need for a scholar to tell you what that says.

 

1 hour ago, Hierophant said:

I see this as a contradiction from different authors.

OK

 

1 hour ago, Hierophant said:

Plenty of Christians disagree it is just about "having faith."

The Bible teaches that when Faith is genuine, our lives will change. (James 2:18, Lk 19:1-10). But salvation remains a Gift of God by Faith, not works. (Eph 2:18)

 

1 hour ago, Hierophant said:

I don't really understand the context of this response to my original post.

My faith is based on what the Bible teaches, and I want to be careful not to fall into what-if scenarios. So I'm not going to speculate on what if God required child sacrifice.